Nigerian startup Kitovu is building intelligent, climate-smart infrastructure that connects smallholder farmers to processors and commodity buyers through a single, data-driven platform.
Founded in 2016, Kitovu operates across the agricultural value chain – supporting production, aggregation, storage, financing, and trade.
At the core is eProcure, an AI-enabled commodity trading and supply chain platform that matches verified farm produce with processor demand, manages quality and traceability, and enables secure supplier payments through trade financing.
Complementary products include YieldMax, which provides farmers with input access and agronomic advisory powered by AI and remote sensing, and StorageX, which offers storage-as-a-service and warehouse receipt financing to reduce post-harvest losses and improve liquidity.
“Together, these solutions increase yields, reduce losses, unlock financing, and ensure reliable, high-quality commodity supply for buyers,” Nwachinemere Emeka, founder and CEO of Kitovu, told TechDesk Africa.
Emeka founded Kitovu after running his own five-hectare maize farm, which allowed him to truly walk in the shoes of smallholder farmers, and experience firsthand the challenges they face, from access to quality inputs to market uncertainty and financial risk.
“This journey was further shaped when I met Hauwa, a smallholder farmer who, after experiencing crop failure, had to take on menial jobs just to repay her farm loan. These experiences exposed the deep structural gaps in agricultural production, financing, and market access, and motivated me to build Kitovu as a technology-driven solution to make farming more productive, resilient, and economically viable,” Emeka said.
He identified a major structural gap between agricultural production and reliable markets.
“Smallholder farmers lacked access to quality inputs, advisory, storage, and affordable financing, while processors and commodity buyers struggled to source consistent, traceable, and high-quality produce. Existing systems were fragmented, informal, and trust-based, leading to low yields, high post-harvest losses, payment delays, and significant supply risk,” said Emeka.
“There was no integrated infrastructure that connected farmers to markets while also embedding productivity tools, post-harvest management, and liquidity.”
Kitovu was created to close this gap by building a single, technology-driven platform that aligns farmer productivity with buyer demand and financing. And the bootstrapped venture has had quite the impact, having already generated US$1.3 million in cumulative revenue through commodity trading and platform-driven services. It has supported over 25,000 smallholder farmers.
“Farmer engagement has translated into tangible outcomes, including higher yields, lower post-harvest losses, and repeat participation across multiple seasons,” said Emeka.
In addition, Kitovu has secured over $4 million in verified demand from processors and commodity buyers, positioning the business for rapid scale once sufficient working capital is unlocked. The model has also been validated beyond Nigeria through revenue-positive pilots in Rwanda and Benin Republic, confirming its adaptability across markets.
“Building on this traction, we plan to expand more broadly across West and East Africa, prioritising markets with strong commodity demand, fragmented supply chains, and a high concentration of smallholder farmers and processors that can benefit from reliable sourcing and embedded financing,” said Emeka.
The company generates revenue through margins on commodity supply transactions to processors and buyers, storage fees paid by farmers, fees from warehouse receipt–based financing, and sales of agricultural inputs bundled with advisory services to farmers.
