Complete Farmer Secures Fresh Funding to Expand Ag Marketplace Across Africa

By Agroempresario.com 

Complete Farmer, the Ghana-based agritech company redefining how African farmers connect with global markets, has secured new investment to expand its operations across the continent. Backed by a recent €2.2 million ($2.5 million) grant from the European Union’s AgriFI initiative, the startup is accelerating its mission to make agriculture profitable and sustainable for smallholder farmers across Africa.

Founded in 2017 by mechanical engineer Desmond Koney, Complete Farmer operates as an end-to-end digital agriculture marketplace, providing smallholders with precision farming technologies, standardized cultivation protocols, and guaranteed access to international buyers. The platform currently serves over 50,000 farmers across Ghana and Togo, with plans to expand into Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire in the near future.

From Farming as Survival to Farming for Profit

Koney’s personal experience on a pineapple farm owned by his father in Ghana laid the foundation for his vision. "I wanted to come up with a model in which farms in Africa can be more efficient to feed global supply chains," he says. That vision evolved into Complete Farmer, a technology-driven solution designed to improve farm efficiency, traceability, and profitability.

Despite agriculture employing over 52% of Ghana’s workforce and accounting for roughly 20% of GDP, poverty levels among smallholders remain alarmingly high at around 33%. Koney saw an opportunity to challenge this status quo by creating a system that combines data science, precision agriculture, and international trade access.

Complete Farmer’s platform offers standardized cultivation protocols that integrate sensors, AI algorithms, and real-time analytics to monitor soil, crop health, water levels, and pest infestations. These tools help farmers maximize inputs, improve yields, and reduce waste, enabling them to meet export quality standards and boost earnings.

Platform Growth and Pandemic-Prompted Acceleration

Initially, Complete Farmer tested its model by applying protocols to its own farms. But the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent global supply chain disruptions spurred an unexpected surge in international demand. "We realized we couldn’t do all the farming ourselves given the demand and decided to bring onboard other farmers to grow using our protocols,” says Koney.

To support this scale-up, the company raised initial seed funding in 2022 from global investors such as Ingressive Capital, EchoVC, Launch Africa, Samurai Incubate, Kepple Ventures, and Norrsken Accelerator. That was followed by a $10.4 million pre-Series A round in 2023, used to establish seven fulfillment centers for post-harvest handling, quality control, and packaging.

Today, more than 90% of farmers on the platform strictly adhere to Complete Farmer’s protocols. Crops in high demand—including soybeans, cassava, chili peppers, pineapples, groundnuts, and ginger—are the primary focus. For instance, soybean farmers on the platform earn on average 22% more than the national benchmark.

“We stay away from crops that have government meddling in the value chain like cocoa,” says Koney. “Instead, we focus on niche crops that have high gross margins and strong export demand.”

A Marketplace for the Future

Unlike traditional models that leave smallholders at the mercy of middlemen and volatile markets, Complete Farmer provides a guaranteed marketplace for farmers' produce. Approximately 80% of the platform’s sales are export-oriented, serving international food processors, FMCG companies, and bulk commodity buyers.

The company’s end-to-end structure—from digital onboarding to harvest logistics—has attracted significant investor interest. With the newly secured AgriFI grant, Complete Farmer is preparing to close a $22 million Series A round by the end of July 2025 to fund further expansion.

"We’re targeting 150,000 farmers by 2026 and over 500,000 by 2028,” notes Koney. “Our vision is to build the most reliable agricultural value chain infrastructure in Africa, powered by data and built around farmer empowerment.”

Scaling Technology for Africa’s Diverse Languages

One challenge the company faces as it scales is language diversity. The cultivation protocols, while effective, can be technically complex for smallholder farmers in rural communities. To overcome this, Complete Farmer is developing an AI-powered application that translates these protocols into local languages and dialects. This will ensure that farmers from various regions can access and apply the knowledge seamlessly.

Koney believes this localization strategy is essential for expansion into markets like Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, where the company has already conducted market visibility studies. The goal is not just to onboard new farmers, but to create a replicable model for digital agriculture infrastructure across the continent.