From the ground up: How Pula got its start

In 2015, Thomas Njeru and Rose Goslinga co-founded Pula after they both noticed a gap in the insurance market. Pula’s goal is to revolutionise agricultural insurance in Africa and Asia by providing accessible, scalable insurance solutions for smallholder farmers. Insurance products are bundled with the inputs that farmers already use, notably seed and fertilizer. Pula uses technology, such as satellite imaging, and historical farm-level yield data, to determine insurance payouts. Over six years, Pula has grown to insure over five million farmers with the total sum insured exceeding $1 billion.

Steve Kogo is one of Pula’s first employees and has seen the company expand and transform in the process. Currently, he serves as a Business Intelligence Analyst. We spoke to him about his experience of working at Pula since its launch:

You joined Pula in 2017. What were the early days of the company like, and what sort of challenges did you encounter?

At the start, in addition to what they were hired to do, everyone in the company was involved in pricing products. Rose, the co-founder and co-CEO, guided me on how to price the company’s flagship Area Yield Index (AYII) product, as well as how to write technical notes. During that time, there was little specialisation which meant you had to be a master at everything.

How has your role in the company evolved since then, and how has being part of Pula impacted your career?

I originally joined the company as a Climate Pricing Analyst to support the development and pricing of the early Weather Index Insurance (WII) products. Since then, I have moved internally and currently lead the company’s business intelligence work. Some of my work now includes data visualisations. This supports the company both with internal reporting or external advisory.

After nearly five years of working at Pula, what do you feel Pula does really well?

As a start-up, Pula allows its employees to innovate and test out ideas in an encouraging environment. This has been useful, as iterative innovation helped us narrow down to AYII as the main value proposition. Through this process, we identified which product was best suited to our business model. This shows that Pula’s strength is its ability to constantly adapt.

Pula offers an agricultural insurance product that is the hardest to sell. Yet, the company is still operational and has raised a Series A round. What makes it so resilient in an environment where success is not easy to achieve?

We have a number of clients that have been with Pula for a long time, e.g. Baban Gona and NIRSAL in Nigeria, and the World Food Programme across a number of countries. Through multiple projects, these clients have seen the value in our product offering in a number of markets and for many agricultural value chains. What also helps is the ability to continue improving your products. From these experiences, the company has developed a market niche and has a single-minded focus on building resilience for the future for smallholder farmers.

Pula has over 80 employees and continues to grow. How has the culture evolved now that the company is developing a global footprint?

Initially, we started off with everyone doing everything, which is common in start-ups. Over the last three years, the company has introduced structure and hired specialised staff. As a place to work, Pula has also listened to and understood its employees’ needs. This has led to better internal processes and an employee experience centred on working hard, but also continuously developing your skills at the same time.

What do you think the company needs to do to continue being successful in the future?

Pula has launched innovative solutions, such as the Pula Insurance Engine (PIE) and MAVUNO, as ways of demonstrating its desire to become and remain a market leader. Such solutions are designed to improve service delivery and customer retention. This is a key challenge for Pula. But like any fast-growing company, Pula will have to understand how to balance internal harmony with external demands. This will help the company to grow further, as it seeks to expand its product range and market presence.

To find out more about Pula, visit Pula’s website here.