Grace Ashiru
Impact investor Acumen has secured an additional $90 million in commitments for its Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund (ARAF), which invests in climate-resilient agriculture businesses across Africa. The new capital comes on top of the $58 million the fund had already raised and will fund its expansion into North Africa, beyond its existing footprint in East and West Africa.
ARAF launched in 2020 as the world’s first equity fund explicitly designed to strengthen smallholder farmers’ resilience to climate shocks. To date, it has backed 12 fast-growing food and agribusiness companies, and Acumen says the portfolio has directly reached more than 3 million smallholder farmers — with over 80% of them reporting improved incomes and yields.
With the fresh capital, the fund — managed by Acumen Capital Partners, a wholly owned subsidiary — is targeting direct impact for at least 4 million additional farmers. Returning anchor investors the Green Climate Fund, Dutch development bank FMO, and France’s Proparco were joined by new backers including Swedfund and Belgian investors in the latest commitment.
The Green Climate Fund’s Africa director, Catherin Koffman, said the partnership demonstrates how blended finance can mobilise private capital for climate-resilient agriculture, noting that GCF is scaling up its commitment to widen the fund’s geographic reach for farmers who rank among the most vulnerable to climate impacts
The raise lands at a moment when agtech and climate-adaptation capital remains thin on the continent relative to the scale of the problem. Agriculture employs the majority of Africa’s workforce, yet adaptation finance has historically flowed as grants rather than long-term investment capital — a pattern ARAF was explicitly designed to break. For founders building in agrifood, the fund’s North Africa expansion also opens a new geography for equity cheques backed by patient, blended capital
