OKO, a Bamako-based digital insurance startup, has raised USD$500,000 to help it grow to Ivory Coast and prepare for a Series A.
OKO was founded in 2017 and offers mobile-based crop insurance products that give smallholder farmers with the financial security they want despite volatile climate trends. The company operates in Mali and Uganda and has insured more than 15,000 farmers to date.
From 2020 to 2021, the number of paying clients at OKO increased by a remarkable sixfold, and the company will continue to expand its reach in 2022 by covering more crops and forming new agreements with financial institutions that provide agricultural loans to insured farmers.
It has announced plans to launch in the Ivory Coast with existing partners Orange, Allianz, and Touton after closing a $500,000 extension round. Global impact-tech accelerator Katapult and three business angels (Guillaume Leenhardt, CEO of Gentle Finance, Henry Allard, CEO of Filhet-Allard Maritime, and Lionel Dorie, founding partner of Augusta Energy Group) participated in the extension round. In April 2021, OKO got a seed investment worth US$1.2 million.
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“Ivory Coast has always been a priority market for us, so when we saw the opportunity to launch OKO there this year we jumped on it. We are bringing strong partners to make this expansion a success and we have big ambitions for the months to come,” said Simon Schwall, Co-founder and CEO of OKO.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh