Agri-tech Lentera works on climate-smart solutions, farm advisory eco-system for farmers

Lentera Limited is a Kenyan agriculture technology start-up focused on enabling farmers – both large scale and small holders – customised solutions to adapt to climate change and increase their productivity by - integrating data and analytics with practical crop science.

Lentera Ltd. is all set to raise a USD 560,000 funding round to create crop-specific versions of its climate-smart solutions for African farmers. The company started working in 2017 as a soil health and crop nutrition organization. Soon, the company pivoted to a broad scope of farm support services after serving thousands of farmers across Kenya, it recognized farmers also needed advice on subjects such as what crops to plant, when to plant them, when to irrigate, and when to scout for pests and diseases.

"In response to this, we launched our precision agriculture services, that offer farm software, weather sensors, drone and satellite imaging as well as automated advisory services on market conditions," Moses Kimani, founder and CEO of Lentera, told Disrupt Africa.

Lentera in Kenya is currently piloting two main services. One is its farm mapping podium that utilizes drone to give farmers with a baseline of their crops' health, pointing out areas of concern such as irrigation and nutrition problems, and providing pest and disease scouting data. "Thereafter, we collect satellite data of the farm every five days to monitor progress. We also install ground weather stations for selected farms. Our algorithm highlights problems with the growth in crops and provides insights on areas that need chemical soil analysis," Moses Kimani said.

The company is now raising seed funding to increase its operations into new markets and work on its integrated mapping and farm advisory eco-system. "We are currently raising USD 560,000 that will see us develop crop-specific models that will integrate data from our ground sensors, and drone and satellite imaging; and to automate data collection and processing. We want to expand our algorithm to include data from key food crops and commercial crops across East Africa," Kimani cited.

Lentera charges for its drone and satellite imaging services, and also makes money from sales of its climate-smart inputs. It is going to launch a subscription model for its app, with Kimani hoping to be cash flow positive by the end of 2019. Active in Kenya and Uganda for now, Lentera wants to expand wider into the East Africa region, and to some West Africa countries by mid-2020.