Yara Growth Ventures joins SoftBank Vision Fund as an investor in leading African agri-marketplace

Apollo Agriculture – a leading African agri-marketplace – announced a series B funding round of USD 30M led by SoftBank Vision Fund and Yara Growth Ventures. This marks the third investment by Yara Growth Ventures in the agriculture marketplace in the last year, including Agrofy in Latin America and Tarfin in Turkey and Eastern Europe.

Since launching in 2015, Apollo Agriculture has grown to be a critical player in the Kenyan agriculture ecosystem. Founded by agri-tech veterans Eli Pollack, Earl St Sauver and Benjamin Njenga, they bring decades of experience including being early members of The Climate Corporation (acquired by Monsanto in 2013 for USD 1.1B).

“We believe there is a massive opportunity to bring leading agriculture services to East African growers,” says Erkki Aaltonen, Managing Director of Yara Growth Ventures. “Eli and the team have consistently executed against a strategy of adding new services to their customers with the goal of being a ‘one-stop-shop’ for growers – including selling Yara crop nutrition products.”

The Apollo Agriculture team is looking for rapid expansion across Kenya and East Africa. The offerings for farmers include last-mile in-store purchases for agri-inputs, competitive financing terms, bundled insurance products and mobile advice.

Yara Growth Ventures joins the ranks of Apollo’s investors which include Leaps by Bayer, SBI Investment, Anthemis Group, and others. The Yara Growth Ventures team will work alongside Apollo’s management and investors to help them empower Africa’s farmers.

About Apollo Agriculture

Developer of an agriculture platform designed to help farmers with modern farming in emerging markets. The company's agriculture platform uses agronomic machine learning, remote sensing, and mobile technology to access credit, high-quality farm inputs, and customized advice, thereby enabling farmers to use advanced technologies for their farming methods and increasing their profits. For more information, visit www.apolloagriculture.com

About Yara Growth Ventures

Yara Growth Ventures is the venture investment team within Yara International ASA. The Yara Growth Ventures team invests in disruptive startups in the agri-food industry globally in order to advance the mission of responsibly feeding the world and protecting the planet. Learn more at www.yaragrowthventures.com