SC Ventures, the fintech, investment and ventures arm of Standard Chartered, has launched Kenya-based Tawi, a B2B agritech marketplace for secure e-commerce transactions for smallholder farmers.
It aims to provide farmers with a viable and consistent market, price transparency and efficient supply chain management.
“Tawi will connect our farmers to an estimated Sh200 billion $1.6 billion) market opportunity," Cherotich Rutto, founder and CEO of Tawi said.
He added that through this platform, farmers will earn more for their produce while also improving the supply-chain efficiency of high-quality produce to commercial clients.
"We are doing this by aggregating demand and simplifying the process for selling and buying fresh produce at a commercial scale.”
Tawi aims to help farmers improve crop quality, scale and make the food and agriculture value chain more sustainable.
The platform will source fresh produce directly from farmers.
In line with promoting diversity and inclusion, Tawi will ensure that at least 25 per cent of the farmers it partners with are women and youth.
SC Ventures started incubating Tawi in 2022 to address some of the smallholder farmers’ challenges, such as the lack of viable marketplaces, which resulted in post-harvest losses.
Other challenges that Tawi is tackling include poor quality produce, fragmented supply chains due to inappropriate infrastructure and too many middlemen.
Since piloting the platform in February, Tiwi has onboarded over 1,000 farmers, 250 commercial kitchens and fulfilled over 1000 deliveries.
The agritech platform is starting off by supplying commercial kitchens, which represent around $210 million (Sh28 billion) in consistent and predictable market opportunity.
Commercial kitchens can order fresh produce directly on the platform and Tawi’s logistic team will collect the produce from the farm and deliver within 12 to 18 hours.
By improving delivery efficiency, commercial kitchens can also use the product for longer and reduce food wastage.
“We are delighted for the launch of Tawi, a fintech that understands agriculture is more than just a business—it's a way of life, rooted in community, hard work, and dedication,” said Jiten Arora, Member, SC Ventures.
Arora added that like SC Ventures, Tawi believes in the power of partnerships to drive success and growth for partners and businesses.
It has adopted a phased approach to building its marketplace and business model.
In the future, Tawi plans to embed financial services including loans and micro-insurance, and value-added services including offering agronomic support for best agricultural practices.
“At SC Ventures, we incubate new business models, new ventures with the ambition to rewire the DNA in banking to solve real-world problems,'' Alex Manson said.
