Nigerian – American firm makes 500 startups list

EZFarming, a Nigerian-US agritech startup pioneering the expansion of smallholder farms to commercial sizes through micro-lending and easy access to produce buyers worldwide, is the only Nigerian startup selected for Batch 25 of the 500 Startups accelerator programme in San Francisco, California.

The 500 startups accelerator programme provides $150,000 in funding, mentorship and hands-on training in a highly competitive accelerator programme, with attendees selected from different parts of the world.

Only a handful of startups from Egypt, Nigeria, and other African companies have made it to the four-month accelerator programme in San Francisco, California, United States of America.

Other startups in the 25th batch of 500 Startups were selected from Chile, France, and Hong Kong, and a host of other countries.

Founded by Cambridge University-trained Nigerian agricultural economist, Dr. Adewale Oparinde, EZFarming has pooled up to $1 million from investors around the world to invest in smallholder farmers in Nigeria, and other African countries, providing a marketplace that thrives on using digital technology to address agribusiness challenges in Africa.

Oparinde said: “We are excited to have made it to batch 25 of 500 Startups accelerator programme. EZFarming is a unique marketplace for smallholder farmers in Africa because we provide not just financing, but use technology to provide technical support and connect them to buyers in a different way beyond eCommerce. We continue to work with farmers to scale their farms to commercial sizes.

“This is a great opportunity for us to continue to improve our model and benefit from the bespoke opportunities the programme offers. We are confident that our time in this four-month programme will sharpen our ability to stretch the limits and deliver more results to our various stakeholders.”

EZFarming got into the accelerator programme in the wake of clinching the first prize of $5000 and the peoples’ choice award at the 2019 Georgetown African Business Conference New Venture Competition, hosted by the Young African Professionals in Washington DC, at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

500 Startups is a renowned global accelerator programme, having worked with over 2,000 startups from across the world.

It has supported 10 tech unicorns – companies valued at $1 billion – including wilio, SendGrid, Credit Karma, Udemy, Grab, and Canva.

In addition to these 10 companies, 66 of its companies are valued at over $100 million.