YC-backed startup ThriveAgric raises $3.93 million in commercial paper sale

ThriveAgric, the Y Combinator-backed Nigerian agritech startup, raised ₦5.3 billion ($3.93 million) in the first series of a commercial paper programme, per TechCabal. The Series 1 issuance, announced at a signing ceremony in Lagos on Tuesday, was oversubscribed, exceeding its initial ₦5 billion ($3.7 million) target.

The raise is the first tranche of a larger ₦50 billion ($37.09 million) commercial paper programme that has received approval from Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission. CEO Uka Eje said ThriveAgric expects to complete further issuances over the next 12 months. Anchoria Advisory Services served as lead issuing house, with BAS Capital, Mulberry, FCMB Capital Markets, and FCSL also participating as issuing houses, according to TechCabal.

The proceeds are earmarked specifically for working capital to buy produce from smallholder farmers, aggregate it, and supply it to off-takers including food processors and fast-moving consumer goods companies — not for agricultural production financing or geographic expansion. Eje said the faster turnover of aggregation and trading transactions makes commercial paper a better structural fit than the longer-tenor debt used to finance crop cycles. "Agriculture is scalable when financing is attractive, and it's a lot more sustainable," he told journalists at the briefing, as quoted by TechCabal.

Founded in 2017 by Uka Eje and Ayodeji Arikawe, ThriveAgric connects smallholder farmers to financing and commodity markets through its Agricultural Operating System (AOS), which handles onboarding, farm data collection, input distribution, and inventory management. The company now serves more than 1.3 million smallholder farmers across 26 Nigerian states, working with about 5,000 field agents, according to TechCabal. Per Crunchbase, total funding raised stands at about $61.3 million. The company's previous major raise was a $56.4 million debt round in 2022 from local commercial banks and institutional investors, which included a $1.75 million co-investment grant from the USAID-funded West Africa Trade & Investment Hub.

ThriveAgric has a presence in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda, though Nigeria still accounts for roughly 90% of its business, Eje said. The company was named to the Financial Times' ranking of Africa's fastest-growing companies in 2024; its revenue reached $73.26 million in 2022, up from $8.1 million in 2019, a compound annual growth rate of 120% at the time. Eje did not disclose current revenue figures.

The commercial paper move marks ThriveAgric's first entry into Nigeria's debt capital markets, broadening its lender base beyond banks to include investment houses and asset managers. Eje said the priority use of the new capital is deepening operations in Nigeria rather than expanding geographically. The company is also building out a data layer — drawing on transaction history and farm activity records — that could eventually allow farmers to access credit directly from financial institutions in its network.