A Nigerian Oil Palm Startup Raised $4 Million to Build a “Smart” Factory

Tech Investments from page 75

The only way to address this is to have

more angel and venture capital that’s rooted

in the local economy, said several interviewees. “Ultimately you need to strengthen a local investor class that cares about the market,” said Ashebir. “Foreign founders are not going to stop coming to the continent.”

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, founder of Future Africa, who has focused on building a venture fund with a mix of local and foreign capital to back local founders, argued that foreign investors in Kenya need to show more accountability for how they’re using funds.

“You’ve come to Nigeria or Kenya, and want to invest in local businesses, but you barely live in the country, or live in an exclusive enclave of the country. Who’s holding these investors accountable when they claim there’s no pipeline of [entrepreneurial] talent, but they’re barely engaged with the ecosystem?” said Aboyeji, a Nigerian who co-founded Andela and Flutterwave. “If it’s not our capital, we can’t argue, even if we see it’s not being well-allocated.”

Indeed, Lagos has now eclipsed Nairobi’s early tech boom, benefiting from not just a larger national economy and talent pool, but also the rise of homegrown tech entrepreneurs like Aboyeji who, alongside local angel networks, have given back to the next generation of founders by investing in their ideas.

Which brings us back to that Ngũgĩ line on selfbelief. The second half of that quote perhaps captures what’s at stake for Kenyan tech leaders who want to rebalance the local ecosystem both in terms of founders taking chances and local capital fl owing to venture funding.

“Value yourself and others will value you. Validation is best that comes from within.” https://restofworld.org/2021/kenya-hasnt-fi guredout-how-to-put-its-local-founders-fi rst Image credit: restofworld.org

By Alexander Onukwue

BESIDES BEING A KEY INGREDIENT for cooking jollof rice, vegetable oil is used industrially in paints, soaps, biofuels, and lubricants. But getting the oil from palm nuts can be a hassle for manufacturers if they have to engage smallholder farmers directly. In most cases, the Nigerian farmer cracks palm nuts with large stones, an inefficient process that makes eventual finished goods more expensive.

Nigeria-based startup Releaf intends to solve this problem by processing produce from farmers, and also delivering the oil to food manufacturers.

The startup has raised $2.7 million from a number of investors including Samurai Incubate, a Japanese venture capital firm, and Nigeriabased firms Future Africa, and Consonance Investment Managers. Stephen Pagliuca, chairman of Bain Capital, and Twitch co-founder Justin Kan are also on board.

Releaf also won a $1.5 million grant from the Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE), a program by the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Why is it difficult to turn palm nuts into processed oil?

“A big challenge in the food processing industry in Africa today is that factories are too far from farmers,” Ikenna Nzewi, CEO and co-founder of Releaf, tells Quartz. “A lot of the money a farmer should receive for crops ends up being eaten up by logistics costs.”

Releaf’s operation begins after farmers harvest palm fruits from trees and remove the flesh for red oil. The company buys nuts from about 2,000 farmers, and crushes the kernel to produce vegetable oil at