NIGERIA – Farmcrowdy, an Agritech company in Nigeria focused on solving inefficiencies in the food value chain, has announced that Onyeka Akumah, co-founder of the company has stepped down as the chairman and shareholder of the organization.
A statement by the firm indicated that Akumah’s exit from the company followed the expiration of his five-year tenure as chairman.
The company added that during his stint at Farmcrowdy, Onyeka led it through significant milestones which include closing a whopping US$2.4m in equity investments, acquiring Best Foods in 2020 and changing the way Africans saw agriculture with his famous quote, “Agriculture is trendy for young people to build businesses.”
Speaking on his exit, Akumah said, “My tenure at Farmcrowdy was a very challenging and fulfilling time which saw so much sacrifice, sleepless nights, hectic travel schedules, fun, tears, laughter, innovation, creativity and time spent building one of the most respected brands in the agriculture and technology space in Africa.
“Going forward the company will be led and managed by Akindele Phillips, co-founder and CEO of Farmcrowdy and Ifeanyi Anazodo, Co-founder and CGO of the company. I wish them well as they build the next chapter of the company.”
Akumah will continue to lecture at the Rome Business School where he teaches on Entrepreneurship & Marketing to MBA students.
With his background in Software Engineering and over 16 combined years of experience in the corporate and startup world including Deloitte, British Council and GTBank, Onyeka is famous for his early foray in the startup world.
Farmcrowdy initially started out as a crowdfunding business which focused on boosting food security in Nigeria.
In 2020, it launched Farmcrowdy 3.0 and expanded beyond financing into using technology to serve all individuals across the entire agriculture value chain, prioritizing stakeholder access to better yields, lower costs, and smarter marketing.
Farmcrowdy 3.0 is an umbrella platform comprising 6 business units which the company is looking to focus on in the next years i.e., FC Tech and Data; FC Structured Finance; FC Insurance; FC Marketing; FC Aggregation; and FC Foods.
FC Aggregation’s ultimate goal is making sure farmers get their work’s worth while Farmcrowdy Tech and Data looks to provide insights, market and yield predictions, market research points, data analysis and others to help improve farmer decisions and outcomes across several value chains.
For FC Insurance, its focus is to provide access to life, health, crop & property Insurance for farmers & other low-income agro value chain participants at an affordable rate and FC Structured Finance aims to help farmers access capital and loan facilities.
Meanwhile, FC Marketing is expected to spearhead Farmcrowdy’s expansion into Ghana Rwanda, Kenya, the Caribbean etc.
Cherry on top of the cake, FC Foods is set to launch its E-commerce platform where consumers can purchase all their fresh foods and get value for their spending.
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