• Latest
  • Trending
  • All
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Security
  • Education
  • Sports
  • Health
  • Entertainment
  • Legal
  • Technology and Science
  • Opinion
  • Columns
  • Exposé
  • World
  • Lifestyle
Nigerian Agritech Startup Releaf Secures $4.2M To Scale Its Food Processing Technology

Nigerian Agritech Startup Releaf Secures $4.2M To Scale Its Food Processing Technology

4 years ago
Nigeria: Govt Says Deliberate Policies Boosting Investors’ Confidence In Oil & Gas Sector

Nigeria: Govt Says Deliberate Policies Boosting Investors’ Confidence In Oil & Gas Sector

5 hours ago
US-Based Lawyer Owolabi Salis Becomes First Nigerian To Travel To Space

US-Based Lawyer Owolabi Salis Becomes First Nigerian To Travel To Space

7 hours ago
Liberian President Slain In Coup Receives State Funeral After 45 Years

Liberian President Slain In Coup Receives State Funeral After 45 Years

8 hours ago
US-Africa Summit Wraps Up with Trade and Investment Deals Worth Over $2.5 Billion

US-Africa Summit Wraps Up With Trade And Investment Deals Worth Over $2.5 Billion

8 hours ago
Upset Galore as Big Guns Man City, Inter Milan Exit Club World Cup

Upset Galore as Big Guns Man City, Inter Milan Exit Club World Cup

8 hours ago
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
  • About
  • Privacy Policy
Heritage Times
No Result
View All Result
Translate |
  • Login
  • Politics
    Ivory Coast: AU Court Rejects Gbagbo’s Bid To Seek Re-Election

    Ivory Coast: AU Court Rejects Gbagbo’s Bid To Seek Re-Election

    SA: Crack Widens In Unity Govt As DA Withdraws From National Dialogue

    SA: Crack Widens In Unity Govt As DA Withdraws From National Dialogue

    Cameroon: Influential Minister Resigns, To Challenge President Biya At Polls

    Cameroon: Influential Minister Resigns, To Challenge President Biya At Polls

    U.S.-Africa Business Summit: Washington Denies “Abusive” Tariff Against Africa

    U.S.-Africa Business Summit: Washington Denies “Abusive” Tariff Against Africa

    Uganda: After 39 Years In Office, 80-Year-Old Museveni Seeks Re-Election

    IWD 2023: Women In Media Harp On Importance Of Digital Skills For Female Journalists

    Nigeria: Momentum Builds As Women Journalists Push For Passage Of Special Seat Bill

    Mali’s Military Leader, Goita Meets Putin After Ditching ECOWAS

    Mali’s Military Leader, Goita Meets Putin After Ditching ECOWAS

    WAES2025: Liberian Leader Wants ECOWAS’ Door Open To Junta-led Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso

    WAES2025: Liberian Leader Wants ECOWAS’ Door Open To Junta-led Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso

    Tunisian Court Slams 15-Year Jail Term On Another Opposition Figure

    Tunisian Court Slams 15-Year Jail Term On Another Opposition Figure

  • Economy
    Nigeria: Govt Says Deliberate Policies Boosting Investors’ Confidence In Oil & Gas Sector

    Nigeria: Govt Says Deliberate Policies Boosting Investors’ Confidence In Oil & Gas Sector

    US-Africa Summit Wraps Up with Trade and Investment Deals Worth Over $2.5 Billion

    US-Africa Summit Wraps Up With Trade And Investment Deals Worth Over $2.5 Billion

    S/Africa Introduces $54 Million Incentive To Boost Local Manufacturing Of EVs

    South Africa Secures $474.6 Million Loan From AfDB To Boost Energy Transition

    Celebration Of Excellence: Nigerian Govt Rewards Outstanding Civil Servants With Brand New Cars, House

    Celebration Of Excellence: Nigerian Govt Rewards Outstanding Civil Servants With Brand New Cars, House

    Namibia Sends First AfCFTA Shipment To Nigeria

    Namibia Sends First AfCFTA Shipment To Nigeria

    Afreximbank Shareholders Name Cameroonian George Elombi As New President

    Afreximbank Shareholders Name Cameroonian George Elombi As New President

    Ethiopia Says It Will Not Go To War With Eritrea Over Red Sea Access

    Ethiopia Opens Doors To Foreign Banks, Paving Way For Competition

    Afreximbank Meetings Close With Calls For African Self-Reliance And Hard-Earned Partnerships

    Afreximbank Meetings Close With Calls For African Self-Reliance And Hard-Earned Partnerships

    Nigeria: President Tinubu Signs Tax Reform Bill Into Law

    Nigeria: President Tinubu Signs Tax Reform Bill Into Law

  • Security
  • Education
  • Sports
  • Health
  • Metro
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Legal
  • Tech & Science
  • Opinion
  • Exposé
  • Exclusive Videos
  • Niger Delta
  • World
  • Politics
    Ivory Coast: AU Court Rejects Gbagbo’s Bid To Seek Re-Election

    Ivory Coast: AU Court Rejects Gbagbo’s Bid To Seek Re-Election

    SA: Crack Widens In Unity Govt As DA Withdraws From National Dialogue

    SA: Crack Widens In Unity Govt As DA Withdraws From National Dialogue

    Cameroon: Influential Minister Resigns, To Challenge President Biya At Polls

    Cameroon: Influential Minister Resigns, To Challenge President Biya At Polls

    U.S.-Africa Business Summit: Washington Denies “Abusive” Tariff Against Africa

    U.S.-Africa Business Summit: Washington Denies “Abusive” Tariff Against Africa

    Uganda: After 39 Years In Office, 80-Year-Old Museveni Seeks Re-Election

    IWD 2023: Women In Media Harp On Importance Of Digital Skills For Female Journalists

    Nigeria: Momentum Builds As Women Journalists Push For Passage Of Special Seat Bill

    Mali’s Military Leader, Goita Meets Putin After Ditching ECOWAS

    Mali’s Military Leader, Goita Meets Putin After Ditching ECOWAS

    WAES2025: Liberian Leader Wants ECOWAS’ Door Open To Junta-led Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso

    WAES2025: Liberian Leader Wants ECOWAS’ Door Open To Junta-led Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso

    Tunisian Court Slams 15-Year Jail Term On Another Opposition Figure

    Tunisian Court Slams 15-Year Jail Term On Another Opposition Figure

  • Economy
    Nigeria: Govt Says Deliberate Policies Boosting Investors’ Confidence In Oil & Gas Sector

    Nigeria: Govt Says Deliberate Policies Boosting Investors’ Confidence In Oil & Gas Sector

    US-Africa Summit Wraps Up with Trade and Investment Deals Worth Over $2.5 Billion

    US-Africa Summit Wraps Up With Trade And Investment Deals Worth Over $2.5 Billion

    S/Africa Introduces $54 Million Incentive To Boost Local Manufacturing Of EVs

    South Africa Secures $474.6 Million Loan From AfDB To Boost Energy Transition

    Celebration Of Excellence: Nigerian Govt Rewards Outstanding Civil Servants With Brand New Cars, House

    Celebration Of Excellence: Nigerian Govt Rewards Outstanding Civil Servants With Brand New Cars, House

    Namibia Sends First AfCFTA Shipment To Nigeria

    Namibia Sends First AfCFTA Shipment To Nigeria

    Afreximbank Shareholders Name Cameroonian George Elombi As New President

    Afreximbank Shareholders Name Cameroonian George Elombi As New President

    Ethiopia Says It Will Not Go To War With Eritrea Over Red Sea Access

    Ethiopia Opens Doors To Foreign Banks, Paving Way For Competition

    Afreximbank Meetings Close With Calls For African Self-Reliance And Hard-Earned Partnerships

    Afreximbank Meetings Close With Calls For African Self-Reliance And Hard-Earned Partnerships

    Nigeria: President Tinubu Signs Tax Reform Bill Into Law

    Nigeria: President Tinubu Signs Tax Reform Bill Into Law

  • Security
  • Education
  • Sports
  • Health
  • Metro
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Legal
  • Tech & Science
  • Opinion
  • Exposé
  • Exclusive Videos
  • Niger Delta
  • World
No Result
View All Result
First with the News

Nigerian Agritech Startup Releaf Secures $4.2M To Scale Its Food Processing Technology

September 16, 2021
in Economy, Top Stories
0
Uzoma Ayogu and Ikenna Nzewi, Releaf's co-fouders

Uzoma Ayogu and Ikenna Nzewi, Releaf's co-fouders

0
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Whatsapp

By John Ikani 

With distance and logistics problems, farmers’ crops can go bad and when factories buy them, it affects their processing yields and price. Farmers, witnessing post-harvest loss, also get paid less and miss the opportunity to invest in their crops production.

Relatedreading

Nigeria: Govt Says Deliberate Policies Boosting Investors’ Confidence In Oil & Gas Sector

US-Based Lawyer Owolabi Salis Becomes First Nigerian To Travel To Space

Nigerian Agritech Startup Releaf is solving this by building proprietary hardware and software solutions to make these farmers and food factories more efficient and profitable.

On Wednesday, Releaf announced that it secured $4.2 million through a seed round and a series of grants to scale its business across the country.

The $2.7 million seed round was led by Pan-African focused venture capital firms like Samurai Incubate Africa, Future Africa and Consonance Investment Managers and individual investors like the chairman of Bain Capital, Mr Stephen Pagliuca and Mr Justin Kan of Twitch.

On the other hand, the $1.5 million grants were secured from Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE) and USAID.

Releaf said it would use the seed investment to develop technology and deploy it to smallholder farmers, while the grant will focus on providing working capital financing to these farmers.

“The seed funding will enable the development of industrial food processing technology in Nigeria’s smallholder-driven Oil Palm sector while the grant will enable Releaf to provide working capital and other value-added services for smallholders and small-scale processors.

“Grant funding will support the training, recruitment and retention of more women and youth in Nigeria Oil Palm sector through the creation of both digital and technical jobs,” it stated.

Founded by Mr Ikenna Nzewi and Mr Uzoma Ayogu, Releaf focuses on value chains where smaller factories are set up near smallholder farmers, allowing them to get better processing yields and fewer logistics costs.

The firm is reputed to have a slice of the global market for palm oil which stands at $61 billion, as the company is into the production of palm oil.

According to Co-Founder, Mr Nzewi, the team saw an opportunity and set out to build a technology to help farmers crack oil palm nuts, as farmers typically go through the process by using rocks or inappropriate hardware.

With the help of a machine created by the Releaf group called Kraken, they produce about 500 tonnes of palm kernel oil per week for smallholder farmers.

The organization is working to increase the production capacities of the 3,000 farmers in their network and hopes to decentralize food processing from major cities in Africa.

About Releaf’s Founding Story

When Ayogu and Nzewi started the company in 2017, the idea behind Releaf was not concrete yet as the team, based in the U.S., had not figured out product-market fit.

First, it planned to increase productivity in Nigeria’s agricultural sector using software. Even after graduating from Y Combinator’s summer batch that year, Releaf toyed around with ideas around trade finance and a marketplace for buyers and sellers of agricultural products.

The team would get a clearer picture of what it wanted to build when the founders moved back to Nigeria. The Americans of Nigerian descent toured across 20 states and studied different value chains for crops spotting inefficiencies that could be solved by technology.

“We took a much more broad approach to what the solution would be, but we really wanted to decide on a specific crop to work in. And we found that opportunity in the oil palm sector,” Nzewi said to TechCrunch in an interview.

The oil palm market in Nigeria is a $3 billion one with over 4 million smallholder farmers cultivating farms where those crops are planted.

These farmers drive 80% of the production of oil palm. But since the industry is quite fragmented, they have many challenges processing the oil palm because it’s a crop that requires serious processing power to extract vegetable oil from it.

How the company’s business model works

Releaf buys nuts from the farmers, then uses the Kraken to crack the nuts and crush the kernels into vegetable oil. Releaf then sells the vegetable oil to FMCG processors and local manufacturers, mainly in Nigeria’s south-southern region.

“Nigeria has about 60% more demand for vegetable oil than it does supply. And it can not be met due to supply shortfall with imports because the government banned the importation of vegetable oil. So there is a need to take these smallholders who are driving 80% of production and make them more efficient so that we can have a better balance of supply and demand for vegetable oil,” Nzewi said about the pain point Releaf is addressing.

Why does the company think it can break into a competitive Nigerian vegetable oil market with hardly differentiable products?

Nzewi explains that the answer lies in the quality of products. Typically vegetable oil is driven by a free fatty acid (FFA) metric that measures vegetable oil’s impurity. The CEO claims that while the industry standard is about 5% FFA, Releaf produces at 3.5%.

Despite having an edge in quality of production, Releaf products are sold on an industry standard. Nzewi says that might not be the case in the future, as the company is looking to finally take advantage of its product quality and increase prices to improve its profit margins.

Tags: Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE)Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural DevelopmentFederal Ministry of Labor and EmploymentIkenna NzewiReleafUSAIDUzoma Ayogu
ShareTweetSend
Previous Post

2023: Former Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan Dispels Defection Rumour

Next Post

JUST IN: Nigeria’s Anti-Graft Chairman Slumps In Presidential Villa

Related Posts

Nigeria: Govt Says Deliberate Policies Boosting Investors’ Confidence In Oil & Gas Sector

Nigeria: Govt Says Deliberate Policies Boosting Investors’ Confidence In Oil & Gas Sector

July 1, 2025
US-Based Lawyer Owolabi Salis Becomes First Nigerian To Travel To Space

US-Based Lawyer Owolabi Salis Becomes First Nigerian To Travel To Space

July 1, 2025

Liberian President Slain In Coup Receives State Funeral After 45 Years

US-Africa Summit Wraps Up With Trade And Investment Deals Worth Over $2.5 Billion

Upset Galore as Big Guns Man City, Inter Milan Exit Club World Cup

Zambia Unveils $100M Solar Power Plant To Tackle Energy Crisis

Next Post
EFCC To Demand Assets Declaration From Bankers - Bawa

JUST IN: Nigeria’s Anti-Graft Chairman Slumps In Presidential Villa

Please login to join discussion
AfriHeritage Magazine Issue 2 AfriHeritage Magazine Issue 2 AfriHeritage Magazine Issue 2

Updates

Plugin Install : Widget Tab Post needs JNews - View Counter to be installed
  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Nigeria: Govt Says Deliberate Policies Boosting Investors’ Confidence In Oil & Gas Sector

Nigeria: Govt Says Deliberate Policies Boosting Investors’ Confidence In Oil & Gas Sector

July 1, 2025
US-Based Lawyer Owolabi Salis Becomes First Nigerian To Travel To Space

US-Based Lawyer Owolabi Salis Becomes First Nigerian To Travel To Space

July 1, 2025
Liberian President Slain In Coup Receives State Funeral After 45 Years

Liberian President Slain In Coup Receives State Funeral After 45 Years

July 1, 2025
US-Africa Summit Wraps Up with Trade and Investment Deals Worth Over $2.5 Billion

US-Africa Summit Wraps Up With Trade And Investment Deals Worth Over $2.5 Billion

July 1, 2025
JESIN GAMES - AfriTrivia JESIN GAMES - AfriTrivia JESIN GAMES - AfriTrivia
ADVERTISEMENT

Most Recent

Nigeria: Govt Says Deliberate Policies Boosting Investors’ Confidence In Oil & Gas Sector

July 1, 2025

US-Based Lawyer Owolabi Salis Becomes First Nigerian To Travel To Space

July 1, 2025

Liberian President Slain In Coup Receives State Funeral After 45 Years

July 1, 2025

US-Africa Summit Wraps Up With Trade And Investment Deals Worth Over $2.5 Billion

July 1, 2025

Upset Galore as Big Guns Man City, Inter Milan Exit Club World Cup

July 1, 2025

Zambia Unveils $100M Solar Power Plant To Tackle Energy Crisis

July 1, 2025

South Africa Secures $474.6 Million Loan From AfDB To Boost Energy Transition

July 1, 2025

Trump Demands Probe Of Subsidies Offered To Musk’s Firms

July 1, 2025

About

Heritage Times HT stands as a beacon of pan-African journalism, dedicated to amplyfing the rich tapestry of voices and narratives across the continent. With unwavering commitment, we illuminate the evocative essence of Africa, offering a fresh perspective that captivates our global audience.

Featured

From Hope To Fear: Kenya Joins East Africa’s Crackdown On Free Expression

AfDB Set For A New President, As Ould Tah Gains Continental Endorsement

How Dangote Is Turning Trump’s Trade War Into Africa’s Opportunity

Connect

Connect with us on social media and receive timely updates on the go.

Get Updates

  • About
  • Privacy Policy

© 2024 Heritage Times (HT) Media.

No Result
View All Result
  • Welcome
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Security
  • Exposé
  • Education
  • Sports
  • Health
  • Entertainment
  • Legal
  • Technology and Science
  • Columns
    • Opinion
  • World
  • __________________
  • Make a Donation
  • Photo Speaks
  • Videos
  • You-Report
  • Whistleblower
  • Advertise
  • HT Events
  • About HT
  • Contact us

© 2024 Heritage Times (HT) Media.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In