Grekkon Limited - Access2innovation

Investing in Impact

P4G has awarded the partnership with about US $165,000 in grant funding. 

There is a growing need among smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa for stable water supply and climate smart irrigation methods as rainfall patterns become more erratic and unreliable. Farmers have also been affected by the high incidence of dry or contaminated wells due to low quality scanning technology. 

Grekkon Limited is a Kenyan agribusiness that offers smallholder farmers in Africa a host of water resilient agricultural solutions including high quality boreholes and drip and overhead irrigation systems. Grekkon Limited has partnered with TEMcompany, a Danish company that has developed high accuracy groundwater mapping technology that eliminates the chances of dry wells and can assess the water quality before drilling. The solution scans an area ten times larger in the same amount of time as existing technology. 

The partnership will bring reliable and economically viable water and irrigation solutions to Kenyan farmers who live in arid or salinity contaminated areas. 

Grekkon Limited will explore manufacturing key irrigation equipment at lower costs and purchase what it cannot assemble in large quantities so it can capture the benefits of economies of scale and pass that saving on to farmers. The startup will also engage with financial service providers including Saving and Credit Cooperative Societies to develop and support Pay-As-You-Use services that will allow more farmers to access the irrigation products and services. 

Grekkon Limited’s competitive advantage includes its collection of climate smart agricultural products ranging from irrigation systems to solar drying equipment and pumps. The startup offers farmers trainings and technical support on the use of its products and has an expert team that has become a trusted resource for farmers in crop production that goes beyond its products. 

In addition to the technical expertise supplied by TEMcompany, Access2innovation provides sector and business acceleration knowledge with GrowthAfrica providing a network of public and private stakeholders in East Africa, and Nordic Impact Funds supporting the startup with due-diligence and investor networks. All collaborators in the partnership will tailor their input to support the investment-readiness of Grekkon Limited. 

During the partnership period, Grekkon Limited aims to improve its business model so it can raise an additional $50,000 in investment. During this time, it will also test and adapt the new mapping technology to increase the success rate of boreholes from 60% to 80%. 

The partnership comprises the following partners: Grekkon Limited (lead business partner); Access2innovation (lead administrative partner); TEMcompany; GrowthAfrica; Nordic Impact Funds.