NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Ignitia on July 15, 2021 announced the closing of a USD 4.2M financing round led by Novastar Ventures, followed by IKEA Social Entrepreneurship. The funds will be used to expand Ignitia’s agricultural decision-making support into the Brazilian market, as well as extend its Sub-Saharan Africa footprint to new markets.

The financing round also saw participation from Novastar, Future Foodways, Mercy Corps, Norrsken and Finca International. Closing this funding round represents another stepping-stone towards Ignitia’s 2030 mission to reach 200 million farmers.

–IKEA Social Entrepreneurship is proud to continue our support for Ignitia so they can scale their work and make a better everyday life for millions more small-holder farmers around the world.

Åsa Skogström Feldt, Managing Director at IKEA SE.

As 90% of Brazil’s agricultural activities depend on rain, Ignitia could play a significant role in stabilizing agricultural value chains through its hyperlocal, highly accurate weather forecasting services. In fact, Ignitia has secured its first major Brazilian deal with precision agricultural leader Starksat, to serve farmers across 3 million hectares.

“We have partnered with Ignitia as they have the best weather forecast machine learning in the industry. We use them in some of our platforms and indexes for agricultural loss prevention and index-based insurance services in Africa and Latin America”:

Bernardo Arnaud, CEO Starksat

Ignitia’s services enable agricultural players to make better timed decisions on all farming activities and achieve improved farming outcomes – from preparing the land to harvesting the crop. Today, Ignitia serves 1.9 million farmers across West Africa, mainly in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Mali. Ignitia was founded in 2010 by three scientists from renowned research institutions such as NASA, who joined forces to address the seemingly impossible task of producing reliable tropical weather forecasts. Five years and 20,000 man hours later, in 2015 the team produced the world’s first hyperlocal, highly accurate tropical weather forecast. Predictive AI, proprietary algorithms, and uninterrupted 3-D multisource data come together to create a tropical forecast that is more than twice as accurate as global models in tropical regions.

Photo courtesy of Feed the Future.