PRESS RELEASE

East Africa Fruits Co. Closes Series A Funding of $2.05 Million

Series A funding positions East Africa Fruits to deliver a stable market for horticulture crops and improve outcomes for smallholder farmers and informal food vendors in Tanzania

May 6th , Dar es Salaam. East Africa Fruits Co., a Tanzanian company addressing food distribution challenges to improve efficiencies in the farm-to-market sector, announced today that it closed Series A equity funding totaling $2.05 million. The fundraising round was led by Goodwell Investments with participation from FINCA Ventures and Elea. This investor capital accelerates East Africa Fruits’ ability to build essential supply chain infrastructure and better transport fresh produce directly from farms to urban marketplaces and strengthen livelihoods for small-scale farmers and food vendors.

A social enterprise, East Africa Fruits provides a stable, fair market for horticulture crops by aggregating supply and demand and improving cold chain distribution and warehousing infrastructure that reduces post-harvest loss and increases availability and quality of produce in local markets. The combined $3.1 million in Series A equity and debt capital will help the company to grow its operations. Over the next three years, East Africa Fruits will serve over 10,000 farmers and 6,000 small-and-medium enterprise (SME) vendors. The company will also acquire new machinery for its main distribution center and build essential infrastructure and technology to collect, store and distribute produce to match demand more accurately.

Investing in food security

Social entrepreneur Elia Timotheo founded East Africa Fruits in 2013 with the goal of transforming the farm-to-market value chain — reducing the waste by removing layers of middlemen and delivering more control, transparency and efficiency to small-scale farmers and informal vendors. In Tanzania, roughly half of what farmers produce never reaches the market and this loss is spread out across the farm-to-market value chain due to poor transportation and storage that results in spoilage, and a lack of market training for smallholder farmers. With more robust and technology-driven infrastructure, East Africa Fruits will bring greater efficiencies to the sector and increase productivity and living standards for local farmers and the vendors who rely on them.

“The completion of our Series A funding opens up incredible opportunities for East Africa Fruits,” said Elia Timotheo, founder and CEO of East Africa Fruits. “We’re eager to scale our operations, expand the reach of our smallholder farmer network and our distribution footprint, and ultimately to demonstrate real impact in the lives of local farmers and informal food vendors.”

Goodwell’s first agriculture investment

“We are excited for East Africa Fruits to be among our first agricultural investment, as we broaden our uMunthu portfolio to address one of the biggest challenges facing the world today — food security,” commented Joel Wanjohi, Associate Partner and Lead Investment Manager, East Africa, at Goodwell Investments. “Tanzania is no exception to the food security problem: the majority of produce never reaches the market as a result of food wastage caused by poor food transportation, lack of cold chain food storage and inadequate market information for farmers. Our investment in East Africa Fruits will help address these challenges. The substantial impact on enhancing food security and empowering the farmers through market linkage, driven by outstanding, local entrepreneurs, makes EAF a perfect match to our investment philosophy.”

“East Africa Fruits is not only improving market linkages in the value chain for smallholder farmers and vendors in the market, but also they are enhancing the potential for financing smallholder farmers and market vendors by raising income levels and providing predictable and well-documented cash flows,” added Ami Dalal, Managing Director of FINCA Ventures. “Expanding and strengthening East Africa Fruits’ offerings will support greater economic and financial inclusion for farmers and small food businesses in sub-Saharan Africa.”

“We are impressed by the social and economic impact East Africa Fruits has on smallholder farmers’ lives, the dedicated team, and the potential of further improving the supply chain for agricultural produce in Tanzania,” said Stefan Kappeler, Managing Director and COO at elea. “East Africa Fruits directly links supply and demand by working closely with smallholder farmers who receive fair prices for their produce as well as with their clients catering to end consumers demanding fresh quality products both in the formal and informal market. This approach creates livelihoods for thousands of smallholder farmers in rural Tanzania while at the same time ensuring food security for the people. We are very much looking forward to working together with East Africa Fruits in the years to come and providing strategic support and sector-specific insights.”

About East Africa Fruits Co.: East Africa Fruits is a social enterprise integrating sellers with buyers of fresh fruits, vegetables and grains. Supporting smallholder farmers on crop planning in alignment with marketplaces, upgrading farm-side infrastructure and transitioning to sustainable practices, East Africa Fruits aggregates demand and delivers a wide range of fresh and exotic produce directly from farms to stores of B2B customers—retailers, wholesalers, local vendors, restaurants and cafés, hotels and exporters. Learn more at www.eafreshproduce.com or follow us on Instagram @eafruits.

About Goodwell Investments: Goodwell Investments is a pioneering impact investment firm focused on inclusive growth in sectors providing basic goods and services and income generation opportunities to underserved communities in Africa and India. The firm provides early-stage equity to high growth, high impact businesses. With teams in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Amsterdam and a track record of over 10 years, Goodwell demonstrates the ability to simultaneously deliver powerful social impact and strong financial returns. For more information, visit www.goodwell.nl or follow us on Twitter @GoodwellInvest.

About FINCA Ventures: FINCA Ventures is an impact investing initiative of FINCA International that leverages a global microfinance network to catalyze market-based solutions to poverty. It does so by providing patient capital and pre- and post-investment support to high-impact, early-stage social enterprises that offer affordable, high-quality and life-enhancing products and services for low-income families. For more information, visit www.FINCAVentures.com or follow us on Twitter @FINCA.

About Elea: elea fights absolute poverty with entrepreneurial means. As a professional and active philanthropic investor, it supports social enterprises and entrepreneurial organizations in creating sustainable and measurable impact. Guiding its partners towards achieving self-reliance and autonomy, the foundation not only invests financial capital but also provides them with business know-how, coaching, and access to its network. As such, elea is a growing community of committed entrepreneurs and philanthropic investors. For more information, visit www.elea-foundation.org.