African agritech innovators from all four corners of the continent claimed victory in the 8th edition of Pitch AgriHack 2022
The Pitch AgriHack 2022 competition saw a 30% increase in completed applications with entries rolling in from 37 African countries.
Representing Egypt and Tunisia in the north, Zimbabwe in the south, Ghana and Nigeria in the west, and Kenya in the east, six youth-led agribusinesses have been awarded their share of US$45,000 to invest in the growth of their ventures.
The winners had a chance to present their businesses to delegates at the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) where they participated in Africa’s biggest agribusiness match-making platform, the AGRF Agribusiness Dealroom.
Over 800 companies, 15 government delegations and 150 public and private investors convened at the Dealroom to generate exciting new opportunities.
“Pitch AgriHack is about creating impact through investment in the young agritech entrepreneurs of Africa.” said Mumbi Maina, Agribusiness Dealroom Lead at AGRA.
“Beyond the prize money, we seek to catalyse relationships between our finalists and future collaborators and investors. These are the relationships that will revolutionise the food system.”
Competing in three open competition categories – Early-stage, Mature- or Growth-stage, and Women-led – the Pitch AgriHack winners and runners-up were allocated cash prizes of $10,000 and $5,000 respectively.
A fourth invite-only category known as the AYuTe Africa Challenge, an initiative of Heifer International, will award grants up to US$1.5 million later this year to scalable ventures that are already generating measurable impact for Africa’s smallholder farmers.
In 2022, the AYuTe Africa Challenge is expanding its role as an African agritech accelerator. New national competitions in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Uganda are offering young innovators a chance to secure the funding and visibility to scale their ideas and ambitions.
For the second year running, Heifer International, the AGRF, and Generation Africa worked together to realize this popular technology competition.
“We at Heifer International believe that youth and innovation are the driving force toward transforming the food and farming sector in Africa,” said Adesuwa Ifedi, Senior Vice President for Africa Programs at Heifer International.
“Leveraging technology, youth have the potential to unlock economic growth, create job opportunities for millions and empower smallholder farmers into self-reliance. We are excited for the future of Africa’s agriculture and the role innovators like these play in shaping it”.
Automated crop disease detectors, agri-fintech solutions for smallholder farmers, digitizing of community seed banks, and market linkages combined with climate-smart training and satellite yield mapping are only a few of the ideas that came out of this year’s Pitch AgriHack competition.
These African agritech innovators are building more comprehensive solutions to solve problems for smallholder farmers.
The Pitch AgriHack 2022 Winners are:
Early-Stage Winners
Mature and Growth-Stage Winners
Women-led Agribusiness Winners
- Winner: Esther Kimani of Farmer LifeLine Technologies in Kenya.
- Runner-up: Anaporka Adazabra of Farmio in Ghana.
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