Today, start-up company Harvesting won the FMO FinTech for Microfinance Prize of EUR 10.000 at the African Microfinance Week (SAM) in Addis Ababa, Ethopia. Harvesting is an AgriFin company that leverages expertise in Remote Sensing Satellites, Agriculture and Artificial Intelligence to help drive financial inclusion by providing actionable data to financial institutions.
This company is working to increase access to finance for smallholder farmers by using satellite data to provide financial institutions with informations on the farms. Their solution can make lending decisions faster, more transparent and more reliable using powerful machine learning and satellite based technologies.
The jury consisting of FMO, the African Development Bank and Accion, chose Harvesting due to the scalability of its solution and that it uses satellite data information to fill a widespread information gap within the current financial system. This allows financial institutions to issue (new) loans to farmers and to better manage their agricultural portfolio since Harvesting provides information on farmers' crops, acres and production activities.
This solution clearly drives financial inclusion among farmers - a large segment of the African population. The jury added: "This innovative start-up uses science and entrepreneurial ingenuity in order to address significant issues with providing farmer finance, we are very pleased to be able to add to their recognition in this manner."
FMO is sponsor of SAM, a biannual conference dedicated to the development of financial inclusion in Africa. It brings together over 600 people active in the African Microfinance space, ranging from MFIs, NGOs and consultants, to larger banks and impact investors. Other sponsors include EIB, Accion, MasterCard Foundation, AFD and Proparco.
