NIGERIA – LoftyInc Allied Partners Limited has secured N592,204,667 (US$1.4 million) investment grant by the USAID-funded West Africa Trade & Investment Hub (Trade Hub) to launch Project Sparrow.
Project Sparrow is an initiative developed to reduce the risk of local and global investments in selected agribusiness and agritech companies in Nigeria to help them achieve higher productivity, better returns, inclusive growth, and access to finance.
The project is expected to positively impact over 50 direct beneficiaries and a total of 25,000 smallholder farmers while creating 4,000 jobs.
Headquartered in Abuja, Nigeria, LoftyInc Allied Partners Limited is an innovation development company that supports start-up teams, innovation enterprises, and social impact projects in Africa.
The organization is on a mission to contribute to the enhancement of lives by creatively investing in ideas and entrepreneurs, while positively changing the broader society.
“The vision of the company has been to tackle the most prominent problem of the 21st century in Africa, joblessness,” said Engr Michael Oluwagbemi, Executive Partner of LoftyInc.
Access to funding has always posed a major challenge to innovative agric-focused start-ups and MSMEs in the country.
The need to provide a solution to this challenge led to LoftyInc’s foray into innovation acceleration, angel investment, and venture capital.
It also led to microfinancing that provides various kinds of funding to novel business solutions covering various sectors of the economy.
Building on this momentum, Project Sparrow will provide incremental financing of US$6.5 million to not less than 20 MSMEs (half of which will be women or youth-led) from an initially selected 50 MSMEs.
“The Trade Hub and LotfyInc share the common goal of supporting small and medium-sized businesses to be drivers of economic growth in Nigeria,” said Wheele Chief of Party for the Trade Hub.
The project plans an array of activities including engaging in blended capacity building development and training.
It also plans market action and execution that will emphasize leveraging smallholder farmers and their cooperatives and scaling up efforts in tandem with development financing to achieve high impact.
Additionally, there will be expected opportunities during the program to share lessons learnt for continuous improvement process.
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