The 9th Annual Learning Event (ALE), hosted by Mercy Corps AgriFin and Briter at the Radisson Blu in Nairobi’s Upperhill, brought together over 300 participants from 20 countries, including government officials, innovators, investors, entrepreneurs, and researchers, to discuss how technology and partnerships can transform Africa’s food systems.
Tamara Cooks, CEO of FSD Kenya, opened the event by highlighting persistent food security challenges seen even in resource-rich nations like Kenya. “The problem lies in broken fundamentals. To fix this, we must ensure our natural resources are used to build agrifood systems that benefit farmers, communities, and the country as a whole,” Tamara noted. She emphasised that meaningful change will require strategic collaboration between agriculture, finance, and technology to truly support agribusinesses and smallholder farmers.
Building on Tamara’s call for greater alignment between technology, finance, and agriculture, our very own Director, Dario, emphasised that platforms like AgBase, which offer granular, context‑specific data, can bring the transparency required to attract investment, de‑risk decisions, and align solutions with real user needs.
A recurring theme throughout the day was the persistent financing gap for agtech ventures. Despite agriculture’s core role in Africa’s economies, few innovators see adequate capital. Jared Osoro, a member of the monetary policy committee at the Central Bank of Kenya and Millycent Aoko, an Investment manager at Acumen East Africa, critiqued traditional lending models, noting they rarely reflect Africa’s agricultural cycles or diversity of value chains. Instead, they called for more adaptive, context-driven finance.
“The complexities of demand and supply mean that the standardised approach of doing things (investing and lending) will not work for the complex realities of the agtech space,” noted Millycent Aoko, an Investment Manager at Acumen East Africa. ”Lending or investing in a maize/cereal business is different from investing in an aquaculture business. Both require different working capital needs, ” she said.
Both Millycent and Jared noted that lenders, financial institutions, and investors should expand their remit beyond capital, incorporating technical assistance, equipment leasing, insurance, and other support for farmers.
Building on this discussion, Umang Prabhakar from ISF Advisors previewed early findings from the new AgTech in Emerging Markets report, showing that this financing gap persists from Latin America to Southeast Asia, but is especially acute in Africa due to the continent’s deep dependence on agriculture. Four global trends shape the agtech ecosystem:
- Funding is still mostly concentrated in on-farm innovations, especially hardware like irrigation/storage, which are gaining ground in Africa.
- There is a lack of diversity in funding instruments, but Africa and Southeast Asia show more experimentation with concessional debt, convertibles, and hybrid models signalling growing demand for patient, flexible capital.
- The persistent “valley of death” is true across all markets, with African startups most constrained and reliant on smaller, fragmented rounds.
- Exits remain scarce globally, limiting investor confidence and capital recycling. However, we are beginning to see early liquidity events in ag-fintechs and traceability in Africa, ag-biotech in Latin America, and logistics and marketplaces in Asia.
For the full analysis, including regional deep dives, instrument benchmarks, and case studies, please sign up here to pre-register for the State of Agtech in Emerging Markets Report, which will be released in December.
How inclusive and localised AI can unlock Investment
On top of what was discussed in the agtech funding space, the event also highlighted how AI and new technologies are key levers to unlock that investment. At the centre of this discussion was how the technology (AI) is helping farmers anticipate risk, improve decisions, and increase efficiency across value chains. AI is already reshaping farm management by integrating diverse data sources on climate, soil, and markets to produce predictive insights and optimise inputs. It is also reducing the strain on overstretched extension workers, as digital tools now deliver real-time advice in local languages, reaching thousands where human agents once could not.
But panellists also acknowledged that AI’s promise comes with hard limits. For many smallholder farmers, connectivity gaps, language barriers, and the cost of smart devices still constrain access. Moreover, large datasets remain scarce or unevenly distributed across regions, threatening to widen inequality rather than close it.
As Stewart Collis of the Gates Foundation put it, “The question isn’t whether AI can help farmers; it’s whether we design it for the right problems.” Similarly, CoAmana’s founder, Hafsa Jumare, noted that the full benefit of AI will surface only when “it’s integrated with credit, insurance, and logistics systems that respond to farmers’ lived realities.”
In essence, the session showed that while AI offers immense advantages for African farmers, it must remain grounded in the human context. Progress depends less on the sophistication of the technology than on how well it reflects the everyday realities, languages, and constraints of Africa’s farmers.
While the day surfaced many pathways to strengthen Africa’s food systems, Dario reminded the audience that progress ultimately hinges on a coordinated, systems approach. “Startups alone cannot solve Africa’s food security problem. We must adopt a systems approach where policy, research, and innovation work together to create sustainable solutions.” Dario encouraged governments to keep open dialogue with investors, innovators, and researchers so policy and enterprise needs remain aligned.
For investors and operators seeking clarity, Agbase provides vetted datasets, market analytics, value-chain mapping, and a live calendar of ecosystem convenings to support evidence-based decisions.
