Ikenna Nzewi, Uzoma Ayogu, and Isaiah Udotong, the founders of Releaf, a Nigerian Agribusiness startup, have secured a $120,000 investment from YCombinator, the world’s most prestigious early startup investor, to scale its Agribusiness solution in Nigeria. |
Since 1960,
agriculture has served as the backbone of Nigeria’s economy, and yet
there still remains endless opportunities for growth in agricultural
value chains. Releaf is driving this growth by fostering trust among
businesses in the Nigerian agricultural sector.
Launched by
Nigerian Americans that have attended the likes of Yale, Duke, and MIT,
Releaf connects Nigerian agribusinesses to customers they can trust.
The three founders
Ikenna Nzewi, Uzoma Ayogu, and Isaiah Udotong are all
Nigerian-Americans, with Engineering and Computer Science backgrounds.
Prior to launching the company, the founders worked at Bain, Microsoft,
and Facebook, respectively.
The team has
secured a $120,000 investment from YCombinator, the world’s most
prestigious early startup investor, to scale its solution in Nigeria. Up
until the investment, its founders were working on Releaf part-time
while students.
Inspired to work in
Nigerian agriculture by Former Minister of Agriculture and current AfDb
President Akinwumi Adesina, the three founders spent the past several
months, working to understand the challenges for businesses in Nigerian
agriculture. Through 100s of calls and several trips on-ground, the
group continued to hear that one of the largest challenges these
businesses face is obtaining buyers for their products. Despite existing
B2B solutions crafted to facilitate this, that problem was consistently
the most frequently mentioned.
Co-founder Ikenna
says, “Portals with millions of African businesses do not facilitate
many true business connections because most business originates through
word of mouth. It became clear to us most of the business-to-business
challenges result from a lack of trust.”
Unlike conventional
B2B models where businesses post what they sell, Releaf’s platform
allows suppliers to directly find the contract opportunities with
buyers.
First, businesses
register and indicate which commodities they are looking to sell. Then,
they are presented with a list verified buyer contracts for those
commodities that they may apply to. Finally, Releaf verifies the seller
and, if they are qualified, makes a direct connection between the 2
parties.
Instead of cold
inquires being sent to buyers, contacting is directly facilitated by
Releaf to ensure a 90% response rate from clients.
One of key benefits
on the platform is when businesses provide more information about who
they work with, they increase the likelihood of the platform informing
them of a mutual connection shared with a buyer contract holders. If
Chima Amechi has 5 business relationships and Ade Olutobi has 5 business
relationships, their connection can result in each of them gaining 5
new business relationships.
Releaf’s business
network is referral-driven. Companies with mutual ties are also
recommended to connect with one another as done on Facebook. When a
business connection is established, both parties can double the network
of businesses they are now connected to.
This Fall, the team
plans to relocate to Nigeria and scale the business on-ground. The
company, operating in stealth thus far, has already verified over 600
agribusinesses and facilitated over 100 connections, but they are now
publicly allowing agribusinesses to apply for verification. Releaf aims
to map out Nigerian agriculture in its entirety over the next 12 months
by registering 20,000 businesses.
Though currently
focused on Nigerian Agriculture, the company aims to serve as a central
platform that powers African trade in the future.
Isaiah Udotong, CEO
of Releaf explains: "Our vision is to make doing business in Africa
easier. For too long reliable business has been restricted to few
trusted partners and have not found success finding partners on B2B
sites. At Releaf, we believe with a larger trusted business network,
private sector growth can be stimulated across the African continent.”
No comments:
Post a Comment