Nairobi — SC Ventures, the fintech, investment, and ventures arm of Standard Chartered bank, has launched a B2B agritech marketplace that will support e-commerce transactions for smallholder farmers in Kenya.
Dubbed, Tawi, the marketplace aims to provide farmers with a viable and consistent market, price transparency and efficient supply chain management.
"Tawi will connect our farmers to an estimated Sh200 billion market opportunity . Through this platform, farmers will earn more for their produce while also improving the supply-chain efficiency of high-quality produce to commercial clients," said Cherotich Rutto, founder and CEO of Tawi.
"We are doing this by aggregating demand and simplifying the process for selling and buying fresh produce at a commercial scale."
Tawi aims to help farmers improve crop quality, scale and make the food and agriculture value chain more sustainable.
The platform will source fresh produce directly from farmers.
SC Ventures started incubating Tawi in 2022 to address some of the smallholder farmers' challenges, such as lack of viable marketplaces, which resulted in post-harvest losses.
Other challenges that Tawi is tackling include poor quality produce, fragmented supply chains due to inappropriate infrastructure and too many middlemen.
Since Tawi started testing the platform in February, it has onboarded over 1,000 farmers, 250 commercial kitchens and fulfilled over 1000 deliveries.
The agritech platform is starting off by supplying commercial kitchens, which represent around Sh28 billion in consistent and predictable market opportunity.
"We are delighted for the launch of Tawi, a fintech that understands agriculture is more than just a business--it's a way of life, rooted in community, hard work, and dedication," said Jiten Arora, Member, SC Ventures.
"Like SC Ventures, Tawi believes in the power of partnerships to drive success and growth for partners and business."
Tawi has adopted a phased approach to building its marketplace and business model.
In the future, Tawi plans to embed financial services including loans and micro-insurance, and value-added services including offering agronomic support for best agricultural practices.
