How Ikenna Discovered His Business Idea and Turned it Into a $10.6 million Backed Releaf

Ikenna Nzewi and his team started Releaf  to facilitate the availability of  high-quality raw materials needed by FMCGs and manufacturers.

Releaf is an Agrictech company that develops proprietary hardware and software solutions to drive large scale processing and availability of PKO for manufacturers in Africa.


Ikenna Nzewi  (CEO), Isaiah Udotong (CGO), and Uzoma Ayogu (CTO), started Releaf as a marketplace  by visiting more than 20 States in Nigeria, buying and selling various agricultural commodities to get clear understanding of how specific value chains function and to  investigate opportunities to develop technology to catalyse their industrialisation. 


Their discovery that there are big factories in Nigeria that  are using only  about 30% of their capacity, due to inability to get access to high-quality raw material, such as PKO,  and that many of the companies rely on imported raw material, inspired the team to pivot the direction of the company to processing of palm kernel oil.

Releaf created two technologies, Kraken and SITE, to ensure players in the oil palm industry not only have the raw materials to keep their factories afloat, but they’re also close to the sources of the raw materials they need. 


Kraken  could  process 500 tonnes of palm kernel weekly with 95% accuracy. SITE uses geospatial mapping tools to  improve business decisions such as where to site certain operations. 


The company equally partnered with OnePipe to enable farmers  access digital financial services 



Releaf uses its  proprietary hardware innovation to scale the availability of high-quality palm kernel oil (PKO) for food factories in Africa, and also boosts the productivity of  smallholder farmers through its open banking technology that offers famers access to capital.

Over 60% of the beneficiaries of its financial services are women, and they have recorded a 100% repayment rate. 


The company has raised   $10.6 million in 8 funding rounds, including its recent $3.3 million pre-Series A round from Samurai Incubate Africa, Consonance Investment Managers, Stephen Pagliuca, and Jeff Ubben.



Releaf makes money by buying palm kernel nuts from farmers,  processes the kernels into vegetable oil and  sells the vegetable oil to FMCG processors and local manufacturers 


It also makes money by offering financial services and by  deploying the services of its  SITE technology to users.


The firm has processed  and enabled its network of 3000 smallholder farmers, supply over 10 million kilograms of quality palm kernel oil to food factories.

Its monthly revenue has grown 7x year-on-year.

And it  has also landed contracts worth more than $100 million from leading FMCG manufacturers like Presco and PZ Cussons.


Releaf is using its funds to optimize  its technology, grow its capacity and deepen its market share  of the global $61 billion palm oil market.

Smatkaria

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