TUNISIA – Maxula Gestion, a manager and distributor of the Startup Maxula Seed Fund, has announced a new investment in Startup MooMe, a decision-making system for farmers.
With this investment, MooMe will create synergies with the company Nour Agricole specializing in the manufacture of cattle feed, in order to support thousands of cattle breeders and also help veterinarians to better manage their projects.
Startup Maxula Seed Fund, to which the insurance company MAE (Mutuelle Assurance de l’Enseignement) and the Arab Tunisian Bank (ATB) are subscribed, mainly intervenes to help promoters of startups to exploit invention patents, to complete the technical and economic study of the project as well as to develop the technological process of the product before the marketing phase, and finally to complete the financing scheme.
The fund which obtained the authorization and the visa of Tunisia’s Financial Market Council (CMF) respectively on November 21 and December 19, 2018, aims to carry out transactions in capital or quasi-capital with a perspective of value creation over a medium / long term horizon.
Its objective is to invest in startups based in Tunisia whose economic model has a strong innovative dimension, particularly technological.
The activity of these startups must be with high growth potential and not having exceeded eight years following the year of incorporation.
MooMe’s investment will help create synergies with Nour Agricole, manufacturer of cattle feed
This is the fund’s third investment after those made in Startups NewGen (specializing in the development of Video games) and NextGen (specializing in the development of educational mobile applications). The exact amount involved in this round of funding was not disclosed.
One of the investors, Khaled Helioui, sees this success as a boost for the remainder of the tech ecosystem, which should concentrate on quality rather than quantity.
“It’s no coincidence that one of the startups that raised the most funds in the country is in the agritech sector,” Helioui says. “The issues that agritech addresses, such as the risk of famine or lack of water, are increasingly prevalent.”
In Tunisia, Agritech is only in its infancy. But, particularly for investors interested in the country, it appears to have great potential.
More than EUR10 million (US$12.09m) was raised in 2020 by the Tunisian-French startup NextProtein, which produces insect-based animal feed and fertilizer from black soldier fly larvae.
On the regulatory front, the company has its products certified through the EU’s Trade Control & Expert System, which is considered to have some of the strictest standards in the world for overseeing the import of animal products.
The latest investment will go to building a second production facility, making new hires, and accelerating R&D.
NextProtein plans to scale production to 100,000 tonnes per year by 2025, or an estimated 10% of the total insect protein market globally.
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