Complete Farmer, a Ghanaian agri-tech startup, has secured a US$2.4 million convertible loan from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to scale up and finance inputs and agronomy services for farmers, along with US$480,000 in advisory to strengthen its systems and capacity to expand farmer financing.
Complete Farmer, established in 2017, is an agricultural trading company that connects international commodities buyers with smallholder farmers in Ghana and Togo. The company works with over 72,000 farmers and provides worldwide buyers such as Aldi and Lidl. Its activities are supported by more than 350 field agents and eight fulfillment centers that handle aggregation, grading, quality control, and export logistics.
The firm has grown beyond agricultural trading, creating a marketplace for farm materials and equipment, as well as a credit product that uses farm data to assist farmers in obtaining finance.
Complete Farmer raised US$10.4 million in pre-Series A fundraising in September 2023, and last year received US$2.5 million from the European Union-funded AgriFI program to support its expansion ambitions. It has recently acquired more finance from the IFC, with support from the GAFSP’s Business Investment Financing Track (BIFT), to assist in connecting more smallholder farmers with financial institutions. By 2030, the collaboration is planned to grow and serve 240,000 farmers, including improving access to financing.
“For us, this partnership is about making finance work better for farmers,” said Desmond Koney, CEO of Complete Farmer.
“Too many farmers with the capacity to grow commercially still struggle to access the financing they need to do so. Over the years, we have focused on building the technology, data and market infrastructure that makes it possible to better understand farmers, support their production and connect what they grow to real demand. Our partnership with IFC allows us to build on that foundation and scale our input financing model, so that more farmers have the resources and support they need to grow sustainably and participate more meaningfully in agricultural markets.”
