Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa 

Agriculture is one of the biggest challenges of our time, closely connected to hunger, poverty, deforestation, biodiversity and climate change. 

These problems are especially felt in Africa. More than 60% of sub-Saharan Africa's population is smallholder farmers, and agriculture account for 23% of Sub-Saharan Africa's GDP. Yet the agricultural potential of Africa remains largely untapped.

Sub-Saharan Africa has historically had low productivity in both labour (food per hour, affecting poverty) and land (food per acre, affecting biodiversity). The average crop yields across Africa are half that of India.

But, investment is targeting the strong productivity gain potential of the sector.  Valuations of African agricultural startups working to eliminate poverty, climate change and deforestation has increased from $42M in 2019 to $424M so far in 2022. 

In the news:

🌳 Amazon deforestation hits record for first half of 2022. Satellite data from the Brazilian Space Agency (INPE) shows that deforestation of the Amazon hit a new record during the first half of 2022. - Washington Post

🛢️ Biden administration signals support for controversial Alaska oil project. The Biden administration has taken a “key step toward approving a huge oil drilling project in the North Slope of Alaska”, in a move that angered environmental activists who said allowing it to go forward would make a mockery of President Biden’s climate-change promise to end new oil leases. - The New York Times

🚗 Rolls Royce, EDF among winners of UK greenhouse gas removal tech funding. Rolls Royce  and EDF are among the winners of a total £54m of funding the UK government announced on Friday to help research technology to remove greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere. - Reuters

Latest impact deals:

The largest this week:

🇺🇸 Xpansiv, a San Francisco-based company connecting buyers and sellers of environmental commodities and provides market data for voluntary carbon offsets, has secured $400M in Growth Equity VC from Blackstone.  

🇺🇸 San Francisco-based startup Molekule, an air purification company, has raised $40M in new Late VC. 

🇪🇸 011h, a Barcelona-based provider of a building platform to accelerate the transition to a sustainable built environment, raised €25M in Series A funding in a round led by Redalpine.

🇳🇴 Norwegian second-hand clothing app Tise has raised €19.4M in Late VC. The round saw participation from Nysnø, eBay, and others. 

Other promising impact deals:

🇩🇰 The Danish nuclear reactor company Seaborg Technologies, has raised €17.5M in Early VC in a round led by EIC Fund (European Innovation Council Fund). 

🇸🇮  Slovenian-based synthetic biology startup Biosyntia, has closed a Series A funding round of €11.5M. The round was closed with investments from the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF) and the two existing investors. 

🇩🇪 Nuventura, the Berlin-based developer of switchgear technologies that help eliminate Sulphur Hexafluoride – the world's strongest greenhouse gas – has raised €4M in Early VC.

Read up on all the latest impact deals in Dealroom.co

Tip of the week

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Job opportunities

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Røskva Richardt

Impact Specialist
Dealroom.co

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