[Transcript] #56: Thrive Agric - How the Agriculture platform evolved from crowdfunding to supporting smallholder farmers across Nigeria & Africa
Transcript for podcast originally recorded on October 1, 2022
😉 In October 2022, we explored the story of Thrive Agric, the Nigerian Agricultural technology company. Thrive Agric was founded in 2017 and initially focused on crowdfunding agricultural projects in Nigeria. Over time, the company shifted towards a comprehensive "Agricultural Operating System" (AOS), providing farmers with financing, data-driven insights, and market access to improve efficiency and transparency. Despite facing financial challenges and restructuring its operations, Thrive Agric continues to support over 200,000 farmers across Nigeria. Currently, it remains a key player in Nigeria's agritech sector with ambitions to expand its reach throughout Africa.
Companies discussed: Thrive Agric, Apollo Agriculture & FarmCrowdy
Business concepts discussed: Agricultural Technology (AgriTech or AgTech), smallholder farmers acquisition strategy, Agriculture financing, Crowdfunding, Agriculture value and supply chains & Debt financing
Enjoy!
Olumide Ogunsanwo
Personal: Website
Afrobility Podcast: Stories and analyses of African technology companies (Website, Listen: Apple podcasts, Spotify & Google podcasts & Read: Substack Newsletter)
Adamantium Fund: African B2B fund focused on education, health, finance, food and transportation (Website & memo)
Firedom Book: Financial Independence stories of African Immigrants (Website, Substack Newsletter & Buy: Print, eBook or Audiobook)
Transcript starts here
[00:00:00] Olumide Ogunsanwo: Today, we're going to talk about Thrive Agric, the Nigerian agricultural technology company. We'll explore the story across five different areas. First, we'll start with some contexts about African agriculture. Second, we'll talk about Thrive Agric's early history. Third, its productization strategy. Fourth, its competitive position and potential exit options. And then end with our views on its overall outlook. The last time we recorded was on September 25th, 2022. Ready?
[00:00:21] Bankole Makanju: I'm good, man. I'm happy to be back. It's been a minute. It's been a while the schedules been all over the place, I was telling a friend it's easier to keep a regular schedule in the middle of a global pandemic.
[00:00:32] Olumide Ogunsanwo: Before we start, should we do a quick detour and continue what we were talking about before we started recording.
[00:00:38] Bankole Makanju: Olumide doesn't know who Asake is. I'll put a link to his album in the comments.
[00:00:53] Olumide Ogunsanwo: Alright then, what are we talking about today?
[00:00:55] Bankole Makanju: We're talking about Thriv Agric!
[00:00:56] Olumide Ogunsanwo: First, it's good to be talking about another agriculture company after we did Apollo episode 55. So two back to back agritech companies. Because culture is important to the continents. They started off as an AgTech crowdfunding platform that connects people that want to invest in agriculture to farmers.
It was basically a marketplace. You have regular retail, individual crowd funders who gave money to the platform. Farmers want money, they get money. They invest in crops, they grow, but they pivot. So right now they wouldn't describe themselves as that anymore. They describe themselves as a tech platform that supports farmers by giving them advice, access to distribution and access to capital.
This is the first time in Afrobility where a former YC company is considered to be a scam by some people. This will be a fun conversation.