IQ Logistica, a South African agri-tech startup with the goal of helping farmers, has released a farming mobile app that allows farmers to manage their whole agricultural operations from their phones.
IQ Logistica was founded in 2014 as a technology services provider to the government for digital management of the cotton supply chain. In 2020, Zebu Investment Partners purchased the company and immediately shifted its focus to being a platform for the farming community rather than a service provider to the government.
IQ Logistica : The Farmers Friend
According to the company, the mobile application known as Farmers Friend possesses digital capabilities that will assist in the transformation of small farming and increase productivity.
“Farmers Friend allows farmers to easily access all of the critical data they need in order to make the best-informed decision, in the here and now,” said David Jeromin, director of business development at IQ Logistica.
IQ Logistica collects crucial data for and from farmers through the use of software-as-a-service platforms, which enables the farmers to scale their farming endeavors more effectively.
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“By creating a digital footprint, farmers using Farmers Friend have the ability to see every aspect of their farm and its needs offline or online. The team at IQ Logistica is excited that South African farmers are able to use the app to optimize their production while seamlessly accumulating the information necessary to obtain insurance, finance, and sustainability certification.”
According to reports, the app monitors over one hundred different farming tasks, such as contract management, reporting the weather, measuring the moisture in the soil, as well as reporting harvest and yield.
Farmers Friend may be downloaded for free on both Android and iOS devices.
The Market Limitation
The power of information and adequate record cannot be undermined, as this will keep farmers abreast of the activities going on with their farms.
According to the director of business development at IQ Logistica, the team determined that there are two gaps in the market.
“First is the lack of trustworthy data for farmers to manage their farming season; meaning there weren’t any traceable mechanisms in place – aside from paper notes or at best Excel spreadsheets – to track when you planted your crop, what cultivar seed you used, what the soil moisture was when you planted, and what your results were.
Our application measures all of these activities and more, while also safely storing the information, making it easy to access, extract and use,” he said.
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“Second, we noticed the amount of friction in the agriculture ecosystem – meaning the amount of difficulty to obtain critical services such as insurance, finance, and key inputs such as seed, fertilizer, and other agriculture products. This issue affects both small and large farmers.
The latter face more difficulties if they aren’t being serviced at all. This market segment – small farmers across Africa – is made up of 500 million farmers, completely untapped; yet is looked towards in order to increase production to feed an ever-growing global population.”
More On IQ Logistica
Seeing its upward trend and how farmers are adopting it, one may be concerned about how the startup generates funds.
Jeromin affirmed that “Uptake has been fantastic since our commercial release in January of 2022. We are proud to have assisted over 4,000 farmers to date and continue to grow our commercial and small farmer base,”
IQ Logistica received funding from Zebu Investment Partners for its Series A round in the year 2020, and Zebu Investment Partners continues to provide assistance for the startup’s developmental needs and its dynamic approach to meeting the expectations of local and global businesses.
Furthermore, the Startups make money through farmer subscriptions and subscriptions for farming organizations like cooperatives or small farmer programs that need to be watched over and kept track of.
“In addition, we act as an intermediary for insurance and key product segments and earn fees associated with those products delivered. Finally, revenue is generated by our finance desk from fees and administration associated with financing activities. Revenue trajectory, like with any given early-stage company is stratospheric with year-over-year growth projected at over 100X,” said Jeromin.
What We heard
“We are currently operating in the South African agriculture and tech markets with a specific focus on row crops like sunflower, cotton, maize, wheat, and soya, and have recently added sugar to our success stable. We are in the process of developing and expanding into livestock, as well as various tree crops by year-end and will further expand into SADC countries.”