Hello Tractor, a Nigerian tractor-booking website, has received a $1 million funding round led by Heifer International. The funding aims to provide loans for tractor purchases that may be repaid with revenue generated from leasing the tractors to local farmers.
Farmers and tractor owners can book connected tractors using Hello Tractor’s tracking device and software, newly rolled out. Farmers now have access to a previously unavailable essential service, while fleet owners see a fleet optimisation opportunity that reduces fuel theft and fraud. Over 500,000 small farmers in Africa are currently being served, with over 3,000 tractors and combined owners.
How They Intend To Deploy The New Funding
According to Hello Tractor, the new $1 million funding by Heifer International, which supports farmers and local food producers to strengthen local economies and build secure livelihoods that provide a living income, according to Hello Tractor, will be used to fund the new “Pay-As-You-Go” (PAYG) Tractor Financing programme. The programme will increase Agricultural Productivity in Nigeria, which has already enabled tractor purchases in the Nigerian states of Nasarrawa, Abuja, and Enugu.
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“We developed the PAYG programme to make tractor ownership – and the reliable income these machines can bring – a reality for entrepreneurs who find it impossible to get credit through normal channels. We look at the revenue tractor owners can generate, not how much collateral they can pledge,” says Jehiel Oliver, founder, and CEO of Hello Tractor.
Partnering with Heifer “allows us to extend innovative financing to people who were previously deemed ‘unbankable,’ while also providing access to technology that has the potential to increase the incomes of millions of smallholder farmers across Africa,” according to Oliver.
The PAYG model, according to Adesuwa Ifedi, senior vice president of Heifer International’s Africa Programs, provided finance for entrepreneurs who wanted to generate jobs by capitalising on the need for tractor services on African farms but lacked traditional forms of collateral.
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“It’s a way to unlock capital for youth who have strong business skills that can help transform African agriculture but are often overlooked by private equity investors,” Ifedi said.
About Hello Tractor
Founded in 2014, Hello Tractor is an ag-tech social enterprise that focuses on connecting tractor owners and smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa through farm equipment sharing applications. The company has, over the years, emerged as the leading provider of technology solutions designed for the tractor services market, capturing 75% of private commercial tractor inflows to Nigeria, expanding to a total of 16 markets across the continent as well as reaching well over 500,000 smallholder farmers.
Hello Tractor brings tractor owners together with farmers in need of those tools. Think of it as the Uber of tractors but with an IoT (Internet of Things) spin. The company digitises a traditionally tech-averse space and offers fleet owners intel about fuel use, maintenance, and more on each of the tractors rented through its system.