Why did Google Fund These Black Founders From Grow For Me and provide non-dilutive capital, mentorship?
We are so excited to announce that, www.growforme.com has been chosen as one of the fifty (50) African companies to receive this year’s (2021) Black founders fund. Why is this fund so important to the journey of Grow For Me?
It’s interesting to know that, within thirteen (13) months, this quiet Ghanaian-based Agrictech company was able to pull together seven hundred (700) individuals (crowdfunders) to support five hundred (500) plus farmers to cultivate maize and soybean. They purchased a quarter of a million dollars worth of harvest from non-funded farmers in the Northern part of Ghana. They focused on soybeans and Maize and were able to supply exporters and processes with high-grade commodities for their factories. They created a ready market for farmers and reduced the net post-harvest loss experienced that year. Grow For Me successfully did this through crowdfunding from Africans on the continent and in the diaspora. They have proven that Africans can fund their own, and share profit in successes and in failures. Now they have developed and deployed a platform called MAP. MAP can pay any farmer anywhere in Ghana instantly for their commodities and receive the commodities in warehouses run by the Ghana Commodity Exchange. When the request for supply, they transport it to any off-taker at a slightly higher price, making five (5%) to seven (7%) percent on each trade. They are set to make the technology and platform available in nine other African countries. This is why they believe Google decided to fund them, along with good recommendations from partners they have worked with.
Grow For Me — Micro Aggregator Platform (MAP), is a web and mobile-based commodity financing, aggregation, and trading platform, that aggregates commodities rapidly and affordably into warehouses across the country using technology. We are able to update off-takers on the progress of their commodity aggregation while providing the best quality on the market.
As reported by Nana the CEO:
“The funding will enable us to execute four objectives and achieve key results in our business, and in the process create more jobs, reduce food loss, provide a consistent supply of commodities to processors and enable stable commodity prices all year round.”
“With this funding and support, we will be able to achieve the following objectives and key results (OKR).
- Deploy our Micro Aggregator Platform into 9 countries
- Successfully execute OKR 1 — Commodity Trading
- Successfully execute OKR 2 — Crowdfunding
- Successfully execute OKR 3 — Crowd Farming
The Funds will scale the deployment of our USSD based Micro Aggregator Platform (MAP) for purchasing farm harvest/commodities across 9 Africa countries via farmers and young aggregators in farming communities.
The fund will enable us to pay for USSD services in each of the nine countries and onboard warehouse owners/operators (Agents) to KYC and onboard farmers/commodity-aggregators in each country.
Via USSD we will be able to fund them to purchase and aggregate commodities from smallholder farmers into warehouses. This will unlock unprecedented opportunities across multiple Agro-based markets in Africa, setting off the digitization of commodity aggregation and smallholder financing on the continent.
Here are our top 3 OKRs for the next 12 months. *
OKR 1 - Commodity Trading
Objective:
Grow our trade volumes significantly
Key Results:
Increase the number of Agents (warehouse managers) signed on from 50 to 100 per annum.
Increase the number of Commodity Aggregators signed on by Agents from 50 to 100 per month
Increase funds raised for commodity aggregation from $ 100,000 to $ 1,000,000
OKR 2 - Crowdfunding
Objective:
Scale the number of farm and trade sponsors significantly
Key Results:
Increase leads per month from 1000 to 5000.
Increase our lead qualification time from 3 days to 5 minutes
Increase the number of sponsors per month from 42 to 500
Keep our Customer Acquisition cost under $ 1 per lead
OKR 3 - Crowd Farming
Objective:
Sponsor more women farmers in farmer-based organizations/groups/network
Key Results:
Increase engagement with Female Farmer Based organizations from 1 to 10.
Increase funding to female based farmer organizations from 1 to 5
Start 3 exclusive female farm crowdfunding campaigns on Grow For Me
Grow the number of female extension officers from 0 to 3.
What does this mean for you as a sponsor?
It means you have a better reason to let your money trade for you since we will have a lot more aggregators to purchase the farmer's harvest at farm gate prices. The funds you commit to trading will finance commodity aggregation through the micro aggregator platform and return a significant profit to you. Visit https://www.growforme.com/en/trades/
to start trade financing on Grow For Me. Remember the terms and conditions and risk policy always apply as outlined here:
Terms and conditions: https://www.growforme.com/en/termsandconditions/
Risk Policy:
https://www.growforme.com/en/riskpolicy/
What does this mean for you as an investor?
It means this is the best time to invest in Grow For Me as you may miss out on the astronomical growth we will be experiencing in the next twelve (12) months. With the support we will receive from Google, we will be able to scale commodity aggregation from farm gate to off-takers and drive profit margins high. Hence, increase shareholder value. Secondly, we will be able to raise more sponsorships from our sponsors to increase our cash balance for commodity trading and indirectly crop production.”
From the entire Grow For Me Team to all our sponsors who have believed in us for the past thirteen months, and financed crop production, we are so grateful and thankful for working with us. Thanks once again for farming and trading on Grow For Me, have a farm-tastic day.
Nana Prempeh
CEO
