Dealflow | January 26, 2021

Pula raises $6 million to expand farmers’ insurance from Africa to Asia

Jessica Pothering
ImpactAlpha Editor

Jessica Pothering

ImpactAlpha, January 26 –  Kenyan insurance tech venture Pula has facilitated crop insurance for more than four million smallholder farmers in 13 African countries since 2015. Africa-focused venture capital firm TLcom and gender-lens investor Women’s World Banking backed Pula’s $6 million Series A round to support its expansion to Asia. 

Crop and farm insurance is a critical backstop for the half-billion smallholder farmers worldwide, as climate change jeopardizes farmers’ livelihoods. Such protection is often inaccessible to small farmers, whom mainstream insurers deem too costly to underwrite.

Pula has a product protecting farmers against locusts, which decimated farms in Kenya last year.