The local production of tomato paste in the country received a huge boost when Tomato Jos, an African agricultural production company, secured Series A round funding of EUR 3.9 million (N1.83 billion) through a consortium of investment firms, who are focused on providing support for small and growing businesses in Africa.

This series A funding is to help position Tomato Jos to further improve the lives and incomes of smallholder farmers and increase the sustainability and stability of food supply in Nigeria.

The funding round was led by Goodwell Investments, through its West Africa partner, Aliyheia Capital with participation from Acumen Capital Partners and VestedWorld.

Tomato Jos was founded by Mira Mehta in 2014 with the vision to create and retain local value add to the tomato value chain, reduce post-harvest losses, and improve the lives of smallholder farmers. Since its inception, Tomato Jos has focused on securing its supply chain through primary production.

(READ MORE: Nigeria’s food security, GDP growth hinge on financial inclusion of farmers)

The secured EUR 3.9 million Series A funding boosts the transition to its next stage of growth i.e. the processing and distribution of tomato products. The agricultural firm will work with thousands of smallholder farmers on over 2,600 hectares of land, putting more than $1 million of direct income into the local economy each year

According to the founder and CEO of Tomato Jos, Mira Mehta, ‘’Processing has always been the plan for Tomato Jos, but to get there, we spent a long five years working only on farming and primary production to make sure that we had a really solid foundation in place’’. 

‘’Everyone at the company is extremely excited to take this big step forward into the world of food processing and value-add production’’.

Although Nigeria is the second-largest producer of tomatoes in Africa, farming inefficiencies create a demand-supply gap resulting in Nigeria also being one of the biggest importers of tomato paste in the world.

A partner at Alitheia, Mobola da-Silva, ‘’Tomato Jos has chosen the right market, business model, and management to succeed as a truly inclusive business within this management. As an agro-processing company that sources from local smallholder farmers and provides access to finance in the form of farming inputs to farmers, Tomato Jos is a good fit for uMunyhu’s inclusive strategy of investing in agribusiness’’. 

Tomato Jos, through its initiatives and connecting local farmers to domestic consumers, has helped smallholder farmers’ average yield to grow by over 340% from 5 to 22 metric tons per hectare, while their average income increased by 455%.

(READ MORE: Emefiele insists CBN will not sell forex for importation of items produced in Nigeria)

CrossBoundary provided advisory support to this transaction through USAID’s INVEST program, funded by USAID Southern and Eastern Africa Regional Missions in support of the US Government’s Prosper Africa initiative.

The MD of Acumen Capital Partners said, ‘’Acumen Capital Partners is thrilled to join Tomato Jos’ Investors to help the company continue to develop a world-class vertically integrated tomato processing operation in Nigeria. Tomato Jos is positioned not only to locally produce tomato paste, which is mainly imported into Nigeria but to help Nigerian smallholder farmers increase their income by increasing their yield by 3-4x’’.

This is a huge boost to the country achieving self-sufficiency in tomato paste production as although Nigeria is one of the biggest producers of tomato in the continent, it is still one of the largest importers of tomato paste in the world.

It can also be recalled that in February 2020, Dangote Tomato Processing Company officially resumed the production of tomato paste after initial hiccups and suspension of operations. This was due to the inadequacy of raw materials.

The shares of Facebook increased by 1.2% when it closed at $209.19 after the Friday trading session at the New York Stock Exchange.

The social media giant had announced earlier on Friday via its news page that a leader in visual expression and creation, GIPHY, was joining the company as part of the Instagram team. Though Facebook has not disclosed the worth of the deal report confirmed that it was a $400 million deal.

What it means: The development would give Facebook’s Instagram users to express themselves in the right way, as the acquisition would further integrate the user’s GIF library into Instagram.

It stated, “GIPHY makes everyday conversations more entertaining, and so we plan to further integrate their GIF library into Instagram and our other apps so that people can find just the right way to express themselves.

“A lot of people in our community already know and love GIPHY. In fact, 50% of GIPHY’s traffic comes from the Facebook family of apps, half of that from Instagram alone. By bringing Instagram and GIPHY together, we can make it easier for people to find the perfect GIFs and stickers in Stories and Direct.

“Both our services are big supporters of the creator and artist community, and that will continue. Together, we can make it easier for anyone to create and share their work with the world.”

What Facebook plans

The social media giant disclosed that it would invest further in its technology and relationships with content and PI partners and that users will still be able to upload GIFs, “developers and API partners will continue to have the same access to GIPHY’s APIs; and GIPHY’s creative community will still be able to create great content.

“We’ve used GIPHY’s API for years, not just in Instagram, but in the Facebook app, Messenger and WhatsApp. GIPHY will continue to operate its library (including its global content collection).”

Founded by Jace Cooke and Alex Chung, GIPHY is an American online database and search engine that allows users to search for and share short looping videos with no sound, that resemble animated GIF files.

TLcom Capital has invested $1 million pre-seed fundraise in Nigerian fintech platform, Okra to strengthen the latter’s push to build infrastructure for Africa’s next wave of fintech innovation.

Okra is expected to use the new investment to scale its team and operations, as it caters to its growing client base.

Established in January 2020, the fintech firm’s “super-connector” creates a secure portal and process to exchange real-time financial information between customers, applications and banks. At the moment, African developers and organisations do not have access to real-time banking data, creating large hurdles during the onboarding and verification of customers.

The founding team is proud to boast that Okra is the first in Africa to bridge this gap, delivering a new layer of transparency between organisations and users in the lending, personal & corporate finance and real estate sectors.

READ MORE: 54gene raises $15 million to boost African genetic code, as venture capital hits $19.5 million

With adequate support from the founding team, Fara Ashiru Jituboh and David Peterside, Okra’s technical expertise has already seen them connect with all of Nigeria’s commercial banks. Okra has the likes of Branch, AIICO Insurance PLC, Travelstart, Bamboo, Renmoney and Swipe (YC) amongst others on its clientele list.

Chief Executive Officer, Jituboh, said, “Our thesis is simple — financial innovation cannot exist without the proper infrastructure, which is data. Essentially, how far the African fintech sector can grow is intrinsically tied to the success of infrastructure like Okra and with our core market in Nigeria, we’re opening the door to another level of innovation in Africa’s largest market.

“There are approximately 125mn banks accounts in Nigeria alone — but over the course of the next two years, we will see that figure rise exponentially, which presents huge opportunities for growth. Our role within this is to deliver ease, speed and transparency to key players within the fintech space so they can get back to driving our continent forward.”

Partner at TLcom, Andreata Muforo, explained that his company is always on the lookout for startups with the potential for high value-generation and Okra’s technology provides the foundation for new fintech solutions in Africa for years to come.

READ ALSO: Lagos offers tech founders N250 million seed fund, cuts stringent access 

“Equally, it was important for us to know that their leadership had the entrepreneur-led focus, which is crucial for execution. Fara’s background was vital here. She’s an expert in over 20 programming languages, worked with multiple Fortune 500 companies and is a great example of why we’re committed to investing in more female founders. She leads by example and we have seen her and David build a really exciting business, in a little under a year, we’re excited to help them grow further.”

Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Okra, Peterside, said, “When we started Okra last year, our priority was to help African fintech and banks build the best in class technology and solve problems for their customers. This investment marks the next chapter of this mission.

“For too long, simple financial tasks like budgeting, internal reconciliations and credit assessments have been additional stressors for businesses and we’re filling a long-standing gap in the market. Our aim is to make these processes as seamless and pain-free for our clients so they can focus on their core services.”