The young African innovators who won the 8th edition of Pitch AgriHack 2022 are already known, which registered a 30% increase in applications, with the presence of 37 countries on the continent.
The winning projects come from Egypt and Tunisia in the north, Zimbabwe in the south, Ghana and Nigeria in the west, and Kenya in the east, which are six agribusiness projects led by young innovators, where they received their share of US$45.000 to invest in the growth of its technological projects.
Winners had the opportunity to present their businesses to delegates at the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF), where they participated on the world's largest match making do agbusiness in Africa, the AGRF Agribusiness Dealroom.
More than 800 companies, 15 government delegations and 150 public and private investors came together in the Dealroom to generate exciting new opportunities.
"Pitch AgriHack is about creating impact by investing in Africa's young agrotech entrepreneurs. In addition to the monetary prize, we seek to catalyze relationships between our finalists and future collaborators and investors. These are the relationships that will revolutionize the food system“, said Mumbi Maina, Director of the Agribusiness Dealroom Lead at AGRA.
Competing in three categories, the winners and runners-up of Pitch AgriHack received cash prizes of $10.000 and $5.000, respectively.
A fourth invite-only category, known as the AYuTe Africa Challenge, an initiative by Heifer International, will award grants of up to $1,5 million over the next year to innovative projects that are already generating measurable impact for smallholder African farmers.
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In 2022, AYuTe Africa Challenge expanded its role as an African agrotech accelerator. New national competitions in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Uganda offer young innovators the opportunity to secure funding and visibility to scale their ideas and ambitions.
For the second consecutive year, Heifer International, AGRF and Generation Africa have worked together to bring this popular technology competition to life.
Automated disease detectors, agro-fintech solutions for small farmers, digitization of community seed banks, and market linkages combined with smart weather shaping and satellite yield mapping are just some of the ideas that came out of this year's Pitch AgriHack competition. year.
These African agtech innovators are building more comprehensive solutions to solve problems for smallholder farmers.
The winners of Pitch AgriHack 2022 are:
Early-Stage Category Winners
Mature and Growth-Stage Category Winners
- Winner: Hamis El Gabry da mozzarella3 (Egypt).
- Runner-up: Allan Coredo da FarmIT (Kenya).
Women-led Agribusiness Category Winners
- Winner: Esther Kimani da Farmer LifeLine Technologies (Kenya).
- Runner-up: Anaporka Adazabra da Farmio (Ghana).
