​Why FMO, Endeavor Extend Partnership with AfricaGrow for the Second African Agritech Cohort

Endeavor and FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank, have recently announced the continuation of their partnership to empower a second cohort of early-stage African agritech startups. The new 'African Agritech Accelerator’ program, scheduled to commence in January 2024, builds on the success and experiences of the first cohort (February 2022–February 2023).

Speaking on the development, Alison Collier, Managing Director of Endeavor SA, said, "It’s wonderful for Endeavor to be joining forces with FMO and AfricaGrow and working together to drive growth in the agritech sector of Africa, enhancing food security and driving local revenue and job growth across the continent. We are excited to continue our work with promising African agritechs—connecting them to founders, investors, and mentors in Endeavor’s global network and accelerating their growth."

What the 2nd African Agritech Cohort is Set to Achieve

This program is set to address growth challenges encountered by agritech startups across Africa while extending the scope of the cohort to agri-adjacent tech startups. Through Endeavor’s tailored mentoring approach and extensive network, entrepreneurs will be connected to subject-matter and industry experts as well as investors, helping them to become “investment-ready” and ultimately promoting the development of the preeminent agritech sector on the continent.

The project is funded through the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Building component of the FMO Ventures Program Technical Assistance Facility, co-funded by the Dutch Government and the European Union. This component seeks to foster the maturity of the venture capital sector in targeted emerging markets by improving the services of incubators, accelerators, and other entrepreneurial support organizations, as well as enabling more early-stage financing for ventures.

"Providing more investment readiness services for scaling businesses is critical to growing the agritech sector across Africa, so we are eager to collaborate with Endeavor and AfricaGrow to provide tailored support to another cohort of promising ventures in one of our key sectors," said Marieke Roestenberg, FMO Ventures Program Manager.

In addition to FMO’s support, AfricaGrow has joined as a co-founder for the program, demonstrating a joint commitment to strengthening the agritech industry in Africa by actively growing the pipeline of investable ventures and attracting more local, regional, and global investors, which are critical to reaching scale.

Commenting on the impact of the 2022 cohort, Betrand Foffe, co-founder and CEO of Jangolo, explained, "The greatest learning of the program is that we learned that we had the wrong business model—we were able to then rebuild our foundation and realign our team. Now our model has a 10x potential; our processes are documented, resilient, and optimized; our team is up to speed and autonomous; and within half a year, our sales have grown (and continue to grow) by +200% month to month. We are very grateful to FMO and Endeavor South Africa for the impact that this program has had on our business."

Founded in 1997, Endeavor is the leading global community of, by, and for high-impact entrepreneurs. With over 40 offices around the world and six across Africa, Endeavor boasts a global network, comprising over 5,000 mentors, 500 growth investors, and 2,200 high-impact entrepreneurs. Predicated on the idea of paying it forward, Endeavor’s mission is to build thriving entrepreneurial ecosystems in emerging and underserved markets around the world by inspiring high-growth entrepreneurs to dream bigger while supporting and investing in them to scale faster and providing a platform to give back to the network.