Local startup SwiftVEE has concluded a more than R170m funding round that underscores the growing interest in tech-backed agricultural businesses.
SwiftVEE, which has positioned itself as Africa’s largest online livestock trading platform, finalised a Series A funding round raising $10m (R171.56m) in equity and debt, earmarked for its future expansion.
The funds will be used specifically to enter new markets, while adding fintech, insurance and data solutions across the company’s platforms.
Investors in the round include Old Mutual’s former CEO Iain Williamson, local venture capital group HAVAÍC, and private equity firm EXEO Capital. This new cohort joins SwiftVEE’s existing shareholders: fund managers Mike Kirsten and Carlo Dickson, and private investment company Zire Africa.
Founded in 2019, SwiftVEE is an online livestock trading platform and is considered one of the first such players in Africa. The company now trades over $100m in livestock and game through hundreds of auctions hosted on its platforms each year.
Beyond South Africa, the agritech business operates in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. The company also facilitates trade for buyer syndicates in North America, Europe, UAE, Asia and Australia.
Russel Luck, CEO of SwiftVEE, said his company’s livestock trading technology “connects fragmented value chains, enabling users to buy online and access complimentary services like digital finance, insurance and data solutions”.
“Our success connecting the livestock trading value chain empowered us to identify other industries where our technology would be equally effective in solving the same problem.”
Over the past decade, technology companies servicing the agriculture sector have done well in attracting investment to their businesses.
In March, local agritech startup Khula raised R126m from existing funders. This adds to $1.3m in seed funding from local agrochemical company AECI and E Squared Investments in 2020, as well as Absa and PepsiCo backing the company for an disclosed sum in 2023.
Perhaps the most successful of South Africa’s agritech players is Aerobotics. In 2020, the Cape Town-founded company famously raised R100m from Naspers in a $17m (R253m at the time) funding around.
Beyond agriculture, local technology startups have been attracting increasing attention from international investors aiming to capitalise on the expected African tech boom.
In May, South Africa-based emergency services startup Aura secured more than R270m in funding earmarked for international expansion to the US.
A few month earlier, Cape Town-founded emergency services technology provider RapidDeploy was acquired by US technology giant Motorola Solutions for an undisclosed sum.
Both Aura and RapidDeploy are also backed by HAVAÍC.
Most recently, Plentify, the Cape Town-based smart energy technology company, concluded an oversubscribed series A funding round that brought its total capital raised to nearly R260m since inception.
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