UfarmX
UfarmX builds the credit infrastructure that makes Africa’s 600 million smallholder farmers individually lendable for the first time in history.
Why it's notable
Over 90% of Africa’s farmers have no access to formal credit, not because they can’t repay, but because no one built the infrastructure to assess them. UfarmX did. Our AI models score farmers who have never had a credit file using alternative data, and local agro-dealers extend inputs on credit against those scores, with every loan insured. We don’t lend; we make it safe for the whole ecosystem to lend. The result is a 1.17% net default rate, collateral-free, on the exact population banks wrote off, and a bank underwriting API launching in 2027 that turns our scoring into the rails everyone else lends through: the Equifax of African agriculture.
Impact
17,000+ farmers onboarded, KYC’d, and individually credit-scored across three markets; $6.8M+ in financing facilitated through 73 agro-dealer retail partners; revenue grew 2.4x last year. An independent external assessment reviewed by Climate Policy Initiative found farmers we finance increased yields by an average of 149% and incomes by 58%, over 30% of them women. Winner of the 2025 Black Ambition Grand Prize (Pharrell Williams’ foundation), recognized by IFC/World Bank for innovation in farmer finance, and backed by multiple global VC's.
