OKO Raises $1.2 Million For Africa’s Smallholder Farmers

<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>OKO Raises funds to support food sufficiency<&sol;em><br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;openlife&period;ng&sol;wp-admin&sol;">OpenLife Nigeria<&sol;a><&sol;strong> reports that OKO&comma; an Insurtech start-up that provides inclusive agricultural insurance to secure farmers’ income across Africa&comma; has closed a seed investment of &dollar;1&period;2 million&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;A statement made available to OpenLife Nigeria by African Media Agency&comma; AMA disclosed that the round was led by by Newfund and ResiliAnce&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The statement added that Mercy Corps Venture&comma; Techstars&comma; ImpactAssets and RaSa also participated in the round&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>According to the statement&comma; the start-up which currently operates in Mali and Uganda uses satellite data and mobile payments to create automated insurance products for farmers whose fields are affected adversely by weather events — primarily droughts and floods&period; With the new funding&comma; OKO aims to strengthen its presence in Mali and Uganda and expand its offerings to more African markets&comma; starting with Ivory Coast&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Agriculture is by far the largest source of occupation in Africa&comma; with an estimated 33 million farms&period; And yet&comma; farmers are deprived from basic financial services like insurance and loans” says Simon Schwall&comma; founder of OKO&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We are using technology to solve this issue and secure the income of those farmers”&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The company already has approximately 7&comma;000 paying customers in Mali and compensated more than 1&comma;000 farmers last year&comma; who were affected by floods&period; OKO’s customers typically grow maize&comma; cotton&comma; sesame or millet&period; OKO also works with agro-industries to help them with their sustainability goals and secure their relationships with suppliers&period; Successful pilots were completed with ABInBev and Touton in Uganda&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This convinced Augustin Sayer&comma; partner at Newfund&comma; to support OKO&colon; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We believe recent advancement in iOT and data availability will lead to the rise of parametric insurance in Africa for the benefit of the local populations&period; Simon and his team have built solid bases in Mali from which OKO can now expand in new countries and offer new insurance products&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>OKO takes pride in being the most inclusive crop insurance available&period; All farmers need to connect to OKO is a phone &lpar;no smartphone required&rpar;&colon; they can dial a short code to obtain more information and pay through mobile money services&period; To achieve this level of accessibility&comma; the company partners with mobile operators&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;OKO has taken full benefit of the Orange Money platform to provide a service that is both innovative and inclusive” says Aicha Touré&comma; CEO of Orange Money in Mali&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Daniel Block from Mercy Corps Ventures added &colon; &&num;8220&semi;While other micro-insurance for farmers exist&comma; we were impressed by OKO&&num;8217&semi;s ability to partner with a pan-African operator like Orange and establish a direct consumer link&comma; which allows for an exciting opportunity to drive deeper user engagement and expand to a suite of insurance products for rural farmers in the future<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The service offered by OKO is supported by regulators and has won both the Fintech Showcase Award by the Alliance for Financial Inclusion&comma; representing financial regulators of emerging countries&comma; and the SME award from ITU&comma; the telecommunication governing body&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>When asked about the next challenges for OKO&comma;<a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;wsj&period;com&sol;"> Simon Schwall’s<&sol;a> answer is clear&colon; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;we need to find more partners who can bring our product to farmers&comma; be it NGOs&comma; agro-industrial players&comma; mobile operators or governmental programmes&period; We proved that our solution is working and answers a strong need&period; Now we need to scale”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;