Zowasel

There are 37M smallholder farmers estimated in Nigeria, agriculture employs more than 70% of Nigeria’s labour force and about 90% lack access to funding.

The Nigerian commodity market is worth $200b or 40% of GDP with an incremental demand of 4million MT annually.

Nigeria's value chain is characterized by low access to value chain finance, high interest rates, speculative commodity pricing, lack of access to market and obsolete technology. With less than 2% access to lending in the agricultural sector by the commercial banks.

To solve this problems with a two simple approaches:

1. Zowasel has developed an online  commodity marketplace that helps connect sellers with buyers through transparent price index and alternative value chain financing. www.zowasel.com 

2. Growsel is a 501(c)(3) award-winning financial inclusion nonprofit agricultural crowdfunding organization that connects underserved Base of the Pyramid smallholder farmers with lenders around the world to alleviate poverty. visit www.growsel.org to learn more.

There are 37M smallholder farmers estimated in Nigeria, agriculture employs more than 70% of Nigeria’s labour force and about 90% lack access to funding.

The Nigerian commodity market is worth $200b or 40% of GDP with an incremental demand of 4million MT annually.

Nigeria's value chain is characterized by low access to value chain finance, high interest rates, speculative commodity pricing, lack of access to market and obsolete technology. With less than 2% access to lending in the agricultural sector by the commercial banks.

Over 35% of farm produce are either lost at harvest or post harvest due to broken value chain - lack of access to logistics and market. While most off-takers imports grains from oversees due to low supply and accessibility from local communities. Nigeria for instance imports of soya beans, wheat, maize was estimated at $22 billion in 2018.

Source: World Bank. Rural Finance in Nigeria, 2017, Global Findex Database, 2018.  FAO stat; World Bank; IFPRI; IITA, ICCO, Dalberg analysis

We are serving these underserved and financially excluded Base of the Pyramid smallholder farmers who cannot reconcile their economic realities with the enormous potentials in their local communities. To server them better, we provide the following:

For Smallholder farmers

We are using technology to provide instant access to market opportunity to smallholder farmers via co-investor marketplace.

 We provide access to interest free finance through online agricultural crowdfunding 

 We provide access to improved agricultural inputs through our network of Trustees who coverts fundraised tin inputs 

With Zowasel, access to finance, high interest rates, long-term repayment plan, and speculative pricing will be eliminated in traditional commodities market.

Off-takers/ Buyers

We offer buyers access to unlimited supply, transparent pricing, procurement payment support, automated purchase order generation, supply chain and inventory management system

Commodity Sellers 

We offer sellers access to premium market, transparent pricing, automated invoicing & waybill system, Inventory Management system, digital wallet and above 24hours payment after delivery to buyers against of 30-120 days.

An agricultural crowdfunding platform - www.growsel.org  that connects underserved Base of the Pyramid smallholder farmers with lenders to access interest free loans for cultivation through mobile and local partners.

An online  commodity marketplace  www.zowasel.com that helps connect sellers with buyers through transparent price index and alternative value chain financing.

Zowasel offer sellers access to premium market, transparent pricing, automated invoicing & waybill system, Inventory Management system, digital wallet and above 24hours payment after delivery to buyers against of 30-120 days.

Zowasel offer buyers access to unlimited supply, transparent pricing, procurement payment support, automated purchase order generation, supply chain and inventory management system

To make this happen, we further developed a field partner scheme called - Trustees Program working with local community organisations such as NGOs, FBOs, MFIs, Social Impact corporative and associations who support our operations in screening, verifying and endorsing smallholder farmers in their communities for lending.

Trustees are advised on how to create lending products suitable for underserved and under-financed Base of the Pyramid smallholder farmers for a maximum commission of 3% to cover they filed operations such as extension services, farm management, monitory and cultivation advise to farmers. 

We provides smallholder farmer with micro-loan through Trustees partners who ensures that farmers only get improved agricultural inputs and direct labour money against physical money, by simply converting all fundraised into improved agricultural inputs to farmers instead of cash.

To further ensure a smooth cultivation, access to market and repayment to lenders, Growsel partners with local insurance companies to provide index-based crop insurance policies to smallholder farmers as part of agricultural inputs and best practices during crowdfunding campaign.

Finally, to further guarantees the sales of produce at harvest, we partner with leading off-takers/processors who are readily available to farm buy and make payment within stipulated period to enable repay back our co-investors

After successful harvest, lenders get their money back while co-investors get their money back only after successful sales of harvest to partner off-takers-buyers. 

All these happens using our Wallet System.

Our business model is the most unique part of out innovation. 

We combine nonprofit and for profit business models to empower and support smallholder farmers. Making money from co-investors funds and harvest sales for specific duration before repayment.

We do not give smallholder farmer money raised, we converts all fundraised into improved agricultural inputs to farmers through our Trustee partners to help increase their yield and increase harvest. 

We do not charge smallholder farmers any interest rates nor give our lenders return on donations.  However, for our sustainability, we provide access to market to our farmers through our co-investors marketplace where we make between 50-100% profit depending on the investment duration and farming season. 

We also make 5-10% on rebate from buck purchase of improved agricultural inputs from partner producers. 

We us PHP and Codeigniter programming technologies in developing our co-investors marketplace and peer-to-peer micro-lending platform for improving access to economic opportunity for underserved Base of the Pyramid smallholder farmers, giving them access to connect with lenders around the world to raise finance at zero interest rates. Plus access to instance market through our co-investors funds.

We has also developed a Wallet system payment system that enables both lenders and farmers to save money for loans and repayment respectively. 

By providing accessible and affordable finance to smallholder farmers, we empower and support farmers to empower themselves, employ more people on their farms, thereby improving their access to economic opportunity. 

On the other hand, we provide a complete ecosystem for farmers to learn, cultivate and sell their harvest to our local partners as part of providing additional income to farmers and suppliers, creating jobs, and empowering communities. This sustainable model eliminates perceived trade-off between farmers and 35% post harvest wastage prevailing in Africa. 

Our co-investors marketplace ensure famers get instance access to market and funds, thereby eliminating wastage and logistics issues.

See below and attached videos and research evidence to support the existence and strength of business model:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To938YJUrwc&t=1s

We have successfully screened, verified and registered 1.2M smallholder farmers in Nigeria and supported over 1,000 with crowdfunding, best practices trainings and created access to market at different levels 

Our target is to increase the number to 200% in the next one year in Nigeria and open our Zambian operations with lessons from Nigeria.

Our goals for the next year and five years are as follows:

Develop more Trustee Networks in at least 5 African countries with minimum of 200 each

Screen, verify and register a minimum of 2Million farmers across this countries and able to crowd-fund for 50% of them yearly 

Install local Farm Hubs across our trustee networks to aid inputs sales, financial inclusion drive, serve as POS and agro training centres. 

We have opened 2 in Western Nigeria and hope to launch 6 in trouble Northeast region of Nigeria in 2019 to aid our operations 

We are also in the market to raise funding for our co-investor marketplace www.zowasel.com to help increase access to market to smallholder farmers through co-investment opportunity against allowing farmers to wait for buyers to pay before getting money. 

Access to top notch tech developers in Africa

Unable to build Trustee networks in local communities to aid our operations 

lack of marketing budget to expose our platform to lenders around the world 

lack of fund to install Solar Farm Hubs to boost local operations 

Lack of fund to aggregate from farmers in other to sell to partner buyers to make profit.

Access to top notch tech developers in Africa 

- We are already working with freelancers remotely to help build our platform

Unable to build Trustee networks in local communities to aid our operations  

- we are building the networks locally based on available resources one step at a time

Lack of marketing budget to expose our platform to lenders around the world 

- We ensure all profits harvest sales and donations goes into marketing particularly social media, newsletters and SMS

Lack of fund to install Solar Farm Hubs to boost local operations 

- We are taking this one step at a time based of viability of a Trustee and the community in questions

Lack of fund to aggregate from farmers in other to sell to partner buyers to make profit.

- we are partnering with local buyers at least to off taker the moment 

Zowasel is an agricultural technology startup using Innovative technologies and alternative financing to solve problems in the agricultural value chain.

We have developed two amazing platforms below to solve problems in the agricultural value chain:

Growsel is a 501(c)(3) US registered nonprofit agricultural technology organisation connects underserved Base of the Pyramid smallholder farmers with access to finance at no interest to alleviate poverty. 

Zowasel an online commodity marketplace that helps connect sellers with buyers through transparent price index and alternative value chain financing.

While Growsel is registered as 501(c)(3) in United States, Zowasel is registered as a commodity and alternative value chain finance company in Nigeria. 

We have a full time staff of of 7 http://group.zowasel.com/leaders/team

and over 500 Trustee and Fellows working across local communities to support our operations in Nigeria alone.

Part-time staff include about 20 across tech, writers and creative services working remotely and in two countries. 

Our  Team combines decades of experience, a deep understanding of our company and agricultural ecosystem across developing economies, financial systems, technology and an international perspective.

The team has a clear charter to focus on the results that matter: ensuring that the company is governed well, in alignment with our objective to maximise long-term strategic vision and value for our shareholders, and in accordance with our founding principles.

It comprises a balanced mix of professional skills and experience in West Africa and Europe.

Jerry Oche, Founder/CEO

Jerry is an alumnus of School of Media & Communications of the Pan-Atlantic University, An entrepreneur, former smallholder farmer, investor and consumer marketing strategist. He is a passionate, dedicated and seasoned agricultural technology and financial expert, responsible for driving our team in achieving our vision and mission. 

Before founding Growsel, Jerry founded Street Toolz one of Nigeria's top digital marketing agencies with clients national and international clients.

Olusola Abinusawa , Head, Finance & Accounts 

Olusola has over 11 years financial experience working across banking, advertising and marketing before joining Growsel in 2017

Kindly see more team members here http://group.growsel.org/leaders/team 

We have the followings strategic key partners supporting our activities regionally and across the globe.

1. VISA – provides financial inclusion drive, e-wallets, gateway, and ATM identification payment cards

2. NAIC Nigeria – provides multi-peril insurance covering to secure farmers

3. Mas Seed, France – provides improved maize seedlings to increase smallholder farmers yield

4. M2i Life Sciences, France provides bio control and organic chemicals to increase yield

5. IITA – Africa – provides best practices learning content across tropical agriculture seeds

6. GODAN  - typically assist us with data analysis and research

7. Oracle NetSuite Social Impact supports our rapidly expanding needs in the fields of accounting, expense and payables management, reporting, and multi-currency management aimed at realizing significant cost and time saving. 

8. Floor Mills of Nigeria (FMN) Grand Cereals, ATMAN, Premier Feed and others are off takers who have signed partners to continuously off-take soybeans and maize from us. 

9. UBA, Union Bank and E-Transact - we serve as agent banking partners provide financial inclusion services to millions of local farmers and the underserved in remote communities in Nigeria.

10. Syngenta Foundation - We concluding partnership announcement with Syngenta Foundation to support our financial inclusion across Africa, starting with Nigeria. 

Our revenue model is based on 5% interest rate on alternative value chain financing “Receivable Finance” and 5% connect fee on direct sales “Connect Fee” on transactions.

5% Connection Fee, off every successful transaction 

5% Interest Rate, off 30day Receivable Financing

 Our financial sustainability is covered in the following areas:

1. Revenues from interest rates and connection fees 

2. Venture capital funds - giving away equity, debt and convertible notes 

3.Grants/awards 

Our number goal is to work with the Solve team and partners to help better develop our technology, scale our solutions and operations across other African countries, and possible other developing economies to support millions of people.

We are applying to Solve to help us over come key challenges and proper support such mentorship, technical expertise, media and conference exposure, and business and entrepreneurship training.

When we are eventually selected would work with the team to learn best ways to grow our business, technology and growth plan. 

MasterCard. - to integration financial inclusion solutions to aid local farmers access to finance, mobile wallet payment 

Andela - to access tech developers and software engineers to aid our technology development 

APCO Worldwide - to help with strategic marketing and adverting strategy and support 

IADB - to help with  financial inclusion solutions and digital systems to improve lives, and technical support to the underserved and reduce poverty 

Atlasssian -to help with  impact investment funds to support our target audience and operations.

Our marketplace needs to powered by blockchain technology to automate the entire financing process, ordering process and inventory management, to reduce the speculative pricing of traditional commodities market and eliminate the current access to finance restrictions holding back over 90% of commodity traders to meet existing local market demand.

We do not have access to such tech talents and funds to pay for this services at the moment. 

With the AI Innovations Prize, we would archive or target or a transparent price index and commodity marketplace. And access to finance, high interest rates, long-term repayment plan, and speculative pricing will be eliminated in traditional commodities market will be things of the passed. 

We would like to apply for the AI Innovation Prize to enable us foster prosperity and social mobility for underserved and financial exclusion smallholder farmers. Our aimed at building a technology driven innovation to empower and support local smallholder farmers financially included, access better market and funds via simple mobile app, SMS and website.

Our crowdfunding solutions are 90% female famers targeted. we are presently working with Jos-Foron Community Vegetable Women Farmers and Oyo Female Cassava Farmers. 

Our partnership with TechnoServer is 100% targeted at female farmers in northeastern Nigeria.

We are opening up crowdfunding opportunities across resettled communities in Northeast Nigeria to empower smallholder farmers to support themselves and their families as they recover from the effect of the insurgency. 

Our team and field partners travelled to some resettled communities in Borno State, to access the current agricultural knowledge and  skill gap, as well as, how we can train these smallholder farmers on agricultural best practices as we kickstart this all important crowdfunding initiative in Northeastern Nigeria.