Terraa has raised $1.5 million in a pre-seed round led by FoodLabs. DFS Lab, Musha Ventures, Outlierz Ventures, and UM6P Ventures also participated in the round.
Currently operating in Morocco, CEO, Youssef Benkirane shared that the one-year-old startup intends to focus its operations in Morocco, build out its logistics infrastructure and only expand when it believes its model can be replicated in other markets.
"Morocco is our priority at the moment, and we are building the playbook in terms of operations, building our tech, and expanding in cities. When we feel confident that we can replicate this model elsewhere, we will start with a big country in Africa where there’s a huge market to kick off our expansion in the continent."
Benkirane and Benoit De Vigne founded Terraa in 2022, armed with experience from foodtech and eCommerce startups across Europe and Africa. The startup helps merchants to source farm produce directly from farmers. This way, the merchants get consistent and fair pricing while the farmers have ready market access.
Per TechCrunch, the startup plans to build collection centres across Morocco's agricultural cities which would be used to store farm produce. Terraa handles all processes, from sourcing the farm produce to delivering them to users internally. However, orders can be placed using its app or website.
According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation's regional office for the Near East and North Africa, food loss and wastage in the region is valued at more than $60 billion. Benkirane claims that 40% of fruits and vegetables are lost or wasted in North Africa. He attributes this to a lack of data on what to produce, adding that Terraa plans to change this.
"In the future, we will have strong capabilities around demand forecasting, and we will share this with farmers for them to know what they need to be producing, and the right quantities, to optimize their production to make sure that they will sell 100% of their production to us."
