Twiga Foods has received $30 million from lenders and investors led by American Investment Bank Goldman Sachs. The food distribution firm is planning to grow its reach to cities outside Nairobi as well as expand into West Africa by the third quarter of 2020.
In addition to Goldman Sachs, other investors include International Finance Corporation, TLcom Capital and Creadev.
Of the $30 million investment, $6.25 million of the funding is in convertible debt and $23.75 million in equity.
According to the firm, the funds will be used to set up a distribution centre in Nairobi which is aimed at offering supply chain services for both agricultural and fast-moving consumer goods.
“We’re working on French West Africa…we see significant opportunity in those markets,” Twiga CEO Peter Njonjo told TechCrunch.
In November last year, the firm received a $10 million investment from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), private equity firm TLcom, and the Global Agriculture and Food Security Programme.
Twiga operates collection centres across Kenya, as well as a central packhouse with cold storage facilities. The company also owns a large fleet of mobilized trucks and vans for swift collection and distribution of produce, thereby creating an efficient logistics system that limits Twiga’s post-harvest losses to 5%, as compared to 30% at informal markets.
Twiga Foods’s main objective is to link farmers and vendors to fair, trusted, modern markets. It also aims to provide a complete supply chain in Kenya for quality produce in urban areas.
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