Kenya-based Victory Farms, a tilapia fish aquaculture firm with hatcheries, nursery ponds, and deep-water cages, has secured $5 million in new capital.
Ed Brakeman, a senior managing director at Bain Capital, and Hans den Bieman, the founder and former CEO of Mowi, one of the world’s largest fish companies, spearheaded the investment.
Following seven internal angel rounds from the same collection of equity–and debt investors (it received $40 million in debt last year), this is the startup’s first institutional investment. The money will help the Kenyan enterprise expand into Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Tanzania.
Victory Farms was created in 2015 by Joseph Rehmann. Rehmann partnered with Steve Moran, a longtime business associate, to study Lake Victoria and conduct some feasibility studies on how they may utilize technology to impact the country’s cold chain sectors.
They came to the conclusion that there was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to reconstruct the fish value chain from the ground up.
Victory Farms was founded with an angel round and launched in mid-2016 to address a market with a $1.5 billion fish shortfall.
According to Victory Farm, technology is used to produce more fish while equally lowering costs for the thousands of market women who purchase fish in tiny batches to cook and market at local food markets.
They run a tech-enabled platform, according to Rehmann, and have scaled 2x quicker than any other African fish firm. Victory Farm has constructed the most effective service in the world utilizing data, at half the cost of the current worldwide leader.
The company sells to Africans in the mass market with a cutting-edge RTM cold chain that uses predictive data to deliver fish to thousands of market women every day across Kenya with less than 1% spoilage.
According to Rehmann, the startup has over 54 retail outlets where over 15,000 market women go to buy fish, and they don’t need electricity or ice.
Techbuild’s Take
Aquaculture is one of the world’s most rapidly expanding food production methods. The growing of aquatic species such as fish, crabs, and seaweeds is known as aquaculture.
With stagnant returns from several capture fisheries and rising requirements for fish and fishery products, aquaculture’s contribution to global aquatic food production is expected to grow significantly, and there is also optimism that aquaculture will remain strong in its role in economic growth and poverty reduction in many African countries.
Africa’s aquaculture industry has huge potential. Aquaculture has been demonstrated to be an excellent stimulus for improving economic growth and community well-being.
There is little doubt that African aquaculture productivity has steadily expanded over time thanks to technological advancement. Victory Farm, a startup, has found a method to use this technology to make fish production simple.
Due to its technology, Victory Farms boasts to have one of the greatest margin structures in the fishing industry. Between 2017 and 2021, the company’s CAGR was 130 percent. Maintaining this rate of growth might inspire confidence. In the case of Victory Farms, Rehmann feels the startup, which also has a manufacturing factory and distribution network in Kenya and the greater East African region, has no serious competition.
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