GroFin and USAID East Africa Trade and Investment Hub partner to increase access to finance for East African agribusiness SMEs
GroFin, a development financier which specialises in providing finance and support to small and growing businesses, has received a grant from USAID East Africa Trade and Investment Hub.
The goal of the grant to GroFin is to mobilise US$10 million of new investments into the agribusiness sector in East Africa over a two-year period. The grant will cover the following countries: Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.
The grant was signed by Juan Estrada-Valle, Chief of Party, USAID East Africa Trade and Investment Hub and Rishi Khubchandani, Investment Executive on behalf of GroFin.
“GroFin is proud to partner with USAID through The East Africa Trade and Investment Hub to extend the reach of its unique model of access to finance and business support to high impact agribusinesses across East Africa. Our intent is to provide business support and assistance to catalyse investments into food security, staple foods and high value nutrition products and increase the competitiveness of agriculture value chains in the region,” said Rishi Khubchandani.
“The Catalytic Financial Tool for Under-served Sectors that we are launching in partnership with GroFin was the missing element in our portfolio; it will enable us to provide targeted assistance to SMEs operating in the agriculture sector," said the Hub's Chief of Party Juan Estrada.
Titled “Catalytic financial tool for underserved sectors”, the grant will involve GroFin screening 200 agribusinesses and offering tailor-made technical assistance to promising small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The grant targets agribusinesses that contribute to food security and high-value nutrition products, increase the competitiveness of their agriculture value chains regionally, support use of innovative technologies to manage waste and losses for example pre-and-post-harvest management losses and nhance solutions/innovations that increase their productivity and/or reduce water usage and other scarce resources.
