Twiga Foods, the Kenyan agri-tech startup has raised an undisclosed amount of funding capital from a group of investors including Creadev and Juven.
The new raise comes at a time when the company is doing serious restructuring that has seen it send home close to 40% of its workforce.
The company has not revealed the exact amount of capital it has raised but CEO and Co-Founder Peter Njonjo, says the funding round is the culmination of a transformation in Twiga’s approach and strategy, which has enhanced its cost efficiency and improved service delivery to its customers.
‘’I would like to thank all our current employees, and those employees who have departed the company following our organisational review, for their service and contributions to enabling Twiga’s success,’’ he says.
In August this year fired a third of its 850 permanent employees despite it having raised Kshs 23Bn in the last 10 years. During a media round-table, the CEO attributed the move to tough market conditions and that the company was pushing for a “lean, agile and cost-effective organization.
Njonjo said its cost structure had been built with the expectation that the company would be expanding across Africa in the next few months. The availability of funding to do that in the short term was however not available due to increases in interest rates in the US, which has impacted the available capital for investment in Africa and other emerging markets.
‘’So, in the short term, we can sustain the business with a 40% reduction in operating costs instead of increasing prices to ensure customers still get affordable goods and services despite the economic environment.’’
‘’This restructuring plan has the full backing of the current shareholders, ’’ he said.
Looking ahead, Twiga says it will continue to progress its mission to digitize the informal retail economy and revolutionise food supply chains in Africa.
‘’We thank our investors, employees, suppliers, customers and other stakeholders for their continued support during this transformative period.” Hein Pretorius, Twiga’s Chairman added..
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