Egyptian agric tech startup, Mozare3, has raised over $1 million in a pre-seed round.
The funding round was led by Algebra Ventures and Disruptech. Other participants in the round include EFG-EV and some angel investors.
Founded in 2020 by Hussein Abou Bakr and Tamer El-Raghy, Mozare3 aims to serve over 20 million small farmers in Egypt by providing them with access to markets and credit. The company also aims to build the first digital community for farmers of Egypt, to offer them agronomy support through its network of subject matter experts.
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Mozare3 helps farmers sell their crops by working with institutional buyers like processors of frozen vegetables and large wholesalers and retailers.
The farmers sign an offtake agreement — an arrangement between a producer and a buyer to purchase or sell portions of the producer’s future goods — with Mozare3 to sell their produce at a particular price for institutional buyers.
Mozare3 plans to use the funds to build its tech, expand its team and grow its network of farmers.
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What they are saying
Mohamed Okasha, Managing Partner at Disruptech said, “We are very excited to lead this round for Mozare3 – a large, underserved segment and very experienced management team. We have been working closely with the Mozare3 founding team since a year to launch the first agric-fintech company in Egypt. We are very confident that Mozare3 will digitally transform this market and enable farmers access to finance and market information in a very innovative way.”
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Tarek Assaad, Managing Partner at Algebra Ventures, said,” The agriculture industry suffers from price opaqueness, supply fragmentation, and high levels of fraud, to name a few of the challenges. We believe that it is one of the segments of the Egyptian economy that can benefit the most from tech efficiencies. We had been looking at making an agrictech investment for some time and are delighted to support Hussein and Tamer as they address this massive opportunity. We were impressed by the vision, capabilities, and passion of the Mozare3 team, and we are excited to be part of their journey.”
Tamer El-Raghy, co-founder of Mozare3 and Managing Director of Acument Capital Partners, an Agric VC in Africa, commenting on the occasion, said, “While the agric sector contributes more than 10% of the GDP and 25% of national employment, farmland [in Egypt] is very fragmented with more than 40% of the farms with an area of less than 1 acre. This fragmentation represents an opportunity for an agri-fintech platform, like Mozare3, to bring efficiencies to the supply side, by providing those farmers with innovative financial products, agronomy support, and access to markets, and hence turn those farmers into contract-farmers, in order to fulfill the growing demand of consumers, processors, and exporters.”
