African agritech is having an uneven year. Funding trackers disagree on exact totals, but they agree the sector remains well below its 2022 peak. Still, several companies have closed real deals this year, and most work on what happens between harvest and market. Here are five worth watching.
Agriarche Links Northern Nigeria’s Farmers to Industrial Buyers
Agriarche, an Abuja-based company founded by Deina Mayaki, runs Kasuwa, a digital marketplace that connects smallholder farmers, aggregators and processors. It serves nine northern states and has more than 25,000 active farmers on its platform. At Cascador’s 2026 Pitch Day in Lagos, it received the largest award of the event, a ₦2.5 billion credit facility. That is roughly $1.7 million to $1.8 million, depending on the exchange rate used.
Eja-Ice Takes Cold Storage Off the Grid
Food spoils fast where electricity is unreliable, and Lagos-based Eja-Ice is targeting that gap. Founded by Yusuf Bilesanmi, the company designs and assembles solar-powered freezers, cold rooms and cooling vehicles that run without diesel. Its customers include small-scale fishers, food traders and agro-processors. In June, All On, an impact investor seeded by Shell, put $1 million into the company to scale up manufacturing.
Koolboks Makes Solar Freezers Affordable
Koolboks is another Nigerian cold-chain player, selling pay-as-you-go solar freezers to food vendors and farmers. It was among the startups funded at the same Cascador event, reportedly receiving about $1.4 million in debt financing. It also won the event’s Best Pitch prize. Together with Eja-Ice, it shows how investors are backing hardware that cuts post-harvest losses.
Sistema.bio Turns Farm Waste Into Energy and Carbon Value
Nairobi-based Sistema.bio makes biodigesters that convert livestock waste into biogas for cooking and organic fertiliser for crops. In March, it announced a $53 million first close of FarmCarbon, a carbon finance vehicle backed by BNP Paribas Asset Management’s alternatives platform, British International Investment and Shell Foundation. The money will help fund more than 90,000 biodigesters at reduced cost to farmers. The company projects the systems will cut over 9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent over ten years. Sistema.bio says it operates in 35 countries and has served more than 200,000 users.
Lovegrass Ethiopia Bets on Teff for Global Shelves
Teff is Ethiopia’s staple grain, grown by millions of smallholders. Addis Ababa-based Lovegrass, founded by Yonas Alemu, sources it directly from farmers and turns it into flour, cereals, pasta and snacks for local and export markets. In February, British International Investment announced $5 million in financing to expand production, create skilled jobs and grow exports.
What These Deals Reveal
The pattern is clear. Cold storage, processing, supply chains and financing for farmers are drawing capital, while standalone farmer apps struggle. Development finance institutions and catalytic funders are also carrying much of the load, and cheques remain modest outside a few large deals. For founders, proof of revenue and a clear link to reducing post-harvest losses appear to matter most.