Vitara raises EUR 1.8 million from AgriFI and Acumen to digitise Ghana's shea supply chain

Ghanaian agritech company Vitara, formerly known as Sommalife, has raised EUR 1.8 million (about $2 million) in equity funding. A consortium led by the European Union-funded AgriFI facility made the investment, with impact investor Acumen and a group of angel investors taking part, Launch Base Africa reports.

It is the first direct equity investment through the AgriFI Ghana Country Window, a EUR 10 million facility that focuses on smallholder farmers in Ghana's five northern regions.

Vitara buys shea from smallholder producers in northern Ghana and sells to international manufacturers. Its TreeSyt platform digitises farmer profiling, commodity buying, training and tree monitoring, giving buyers traceable supply-chain data. The company says it wants to cut out exploitative middlemen so that more of the final price reaches producers. The new capital will expand TreeSyt and Vitara's work with women producers.

According to the company, 91 per cent of the farmers in its network are women, and it worked with about 47,000 women farmers in the latest shea season. It also reports protecting more than 1,500 acres of shea parklands under conservation agreements with 59 communities, and aims to reach one million farmers by 2030.