Grace Ashiru
The Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) has led a $26 million Series B round in Tanzanian agritech company East Africa Foods (EAF), investing through InfraCo, its equity arm; the round sits inside a larger $40 million raise. Oikocredit and FMO, the Dutch development bank, joined the equity round, and so did returning backers ARAF, Goodwell, Africa Eats and FINCA.
Debt makes up part of the rest. The Schmidt Family Foundation provided debt funding, existing shareholders put in more money, and EKTA Partners was the sole financial adviser on the deal.
EAF buys directly from over 28,000 registered smallholder farmers and sells to over 10,000 retailers in cities. It handles the whole chain (aggregation, grading, storage, processing and distribution), and it also sells to consumers under two brands, Onja and Golden Banana.
The money will go into more processing, storage and logistics capacity, a stronger digital platform, and new markets, starting with Kenya. EAF also plans to build out the software that links its farmers, branches and retailers, and to train more farmers in climate-smart growing methods.
The targets are specific. EAF wants to work with 100,000 smallholder farmers within a few years, with women making up about 45% of them, and it plans to cut food waste across its network by a third.
Founder and CEO Elia Timotheo puts the waste problem bluntly: “A third of what our farmers grow never reaches anyone’s table.” He argues the cause is missing infrastructure rather than poor farming, and says EAF has spent three years building the sourcing network, vehicle fleet, storage and software that link small farms to city shelves.
Claire Jarratt, who heads investment management for InfraCo at PIDG, said EAF fits the group’s mandate for inclusive, climate-resilient growth, and that expanding into Kenya should help draw more finance into the sector and improve regional food security. Peter Byrde, FMO’s private equity director, said a commercially viable agri-logistics model could pull more private capital into the space over the coming years.
