Zowasel is an agricultural technology startup developing a sustainable and nature-positive value chain across communities, people, and the planet.
It works with over 1.5 million smallholder farmers aggregated across its network in Northern Nigeria, and recently launched operations across Nigeria’s Niger Delta region to support smallholder farmers across the oil palm and cocoa value chains.
It works with national and multinational crop processors to provide a platform for both local crop sourcing and global export of commodities.
The United Nations World Food Programme has developed the “Zero Hunger Sprint” as a platform to enable innovators to put their ideas into action to end hunger by 2030.
The goal is to empower agricultural startups’ innovations with additional resources to accelerate their ideas.
The idea of starting an agricultural technology company came as a result of the founder’s observation of how difficult it was for his mother to access the market to trade her commodities and access credit to finance her trade in Nigeria.
Today, their vision has created a robust ecosystem by building a sustainable agricultural value chain.
Offering easy, fast, and accessible technology suited for both online and offline markets, enabling farmers to increase their productivity, better crop quality, and increase revenues by selling beyond their traditional local markets.
Zowasel is leveraging data science and artificial intelligence to improve productivity, sustainability, and profitability for smallholder farmers from seed to market.
How it Works
Due Diligence
Zowasel screened enterprise buyers based on their company formation, payment terms, off-take capacity, and financial records to determine/verify proof of income and payment capacity.
Zowasel signs Fulfillment Agreements with buyers, after which the buyer issues payment domiciliation to join the platform.
Zowasel verifies every crop seller on the platform using their BVN, NIN, crop quality knowledge, and souring networks to determine/verify proof delivery capacity.
Transaction Security
They match buyers and sellers of the same commodity. You decide on pricing and terms together, Zowasel enforces smart contracts and ensures that all transactions are shipped and payments are made after delivery without any issues.
To protect customers and ourselves, they follow the normal buyers’ payment terms by making payments after delivery.
Wide Selection
They offer a wide selection of a high-quality variety of agricultural commodities from grains, roots, and vegetables, to fruits.
They fulfill delivery of a variety of commodities that have been verified by their local experts and their crop test centers, directly from across all supplier networks.
They ensure their customers get high-quality crops by providing sourcing assurance, quality testing, and control services to their marketplace sellers and buyers through their Crop Test Centers and network of trained Trustees nationwide.
Long Term Relationship
They aim to create season-long relationships between growers and buyers that last for many years. From their boots-on-the-farm, their Crop Test Centers, and field operation expertise, they ensure the fulfillment of a successful first season.
Additionally, they ensure that any deductions are justified by third-party inspections and help match the right trading parties to maximize returns on the crop.
Traceability
They consult with you to understand your needs, select the right program to fit your supply chain needs, and meet your climate-action and sustainability goals from farm to factory.
They train and coordinate growers to follow your sustainable growing practices to meet your goals, connecting them to your current upstream supply chain and empowering them to improve practices each year through incentive programs.
Using innovative digital twin technology and on the field team of agronomists, they track crop progress, verify practices, and transform data into tangible metrics to showcase program impact.
Finally, they ensure your crop is reliably delivered to the specified delivery point within the specified timeframe.
Reports
They bring you trending price offers and insights to power your agribusiness dynamically.
Get access to their exclusive all-in-one Commodity Market Report across Cash Crops and Grains. They bring you trending price offers from leading buyers to dynamically power your agribusiness, profitability, and projections for the week ahead.
Subscribe to their all-exclusive commodity market report and statistical data analytics through a seamless dashboard across all devices.
Get all the in-depth reports you need in one place making it easy for you to make your buying decisions.
Get access to their real-time price offers from farm-gate, aggregators, and competition offers across grains and cash crops value chains.
Founders
Jerry Oche
Jerry Oche is the Founder and CEO of Zowasel.
He previously worked at Street Toolz as a Founder and Chief Executive.
Jerry Oche attended the University of Jos.
Investors & Funding Rounds
Guinness Nigeria, Promasidor Nigeria
Zowasel has received US$100,000 financing from Guinness Nigeria and Promasidor Nigeria, a leading pan-African consumer packaged food manufacturer, at the UN World Food Programme Zero Hunger Sprint.
At the Zero Hunger Sprint inaugural event, held in Lagos, Zowasel received two investments worth US$100,000 from available $250,000 investment commitments from five corporate organizations.
The funding from Guinness and Promasidor will see Zowasel take part in a six-month support program.
It also provides customer acquisition opportunities, and partnerships with Guinness and Promasidor to join its list of marketplace off-takers and users of its traceability and sustainability software across the supply chain.
With the new secured financing, Guinness and Promisador will join its marketplace of off-takers and rely on traceability and sustainability software on the supply chain.
Main Competitors
EnviroKure, Incorporated: Disruptive ag biotechnology to enhance plant growth and productivity, builds healthy soil, and can reduce the need for chemical fertilizers.
Farmers Business Network: FBN is an AgTech and commerce platform that helps its members make confident decisions to ensure the economic viability of their farms.
GrowFlux: GrowFlux, Inc. provides automation and cloud technology services.
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