Emata’s Bram van den Bosch- daring Ugandan farmers to dream big with digital loans Bram van den Bosch abandoned what was a promising career in agriculture financing at ING Group, a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam to take up a Managing Director role at Laboremus Uganda. If you haven’t heard of it, well, Laborious is a financial technology company that builds solutions for banks in East Africa. In his nearly 4 years at the firm, it didn’t take him long to realise, in his own words: “that African banks hardly service farmers, who are Africa's most underserved yet economically important segment”. He then went on, borrowing from his agriculture financing background, to try to convince the banks that technology could help solve this issue, but when they didn't bite, he, again in his words, “gathered a team of brilliant friends and coworkers and founded Emata Uganda to demonstrate how it should be done”. In this interview with CEO East Africa Magazine’s Muhereza Kyamutetera, he shares Emata’s big ambitions, the successes to date and the long road ahead.

For starters, tell us about Emata Uganda. What is it about?

Emata is a Ugandan fintech and licensed micro-finance institution. The company leverages technology and partnerships with agricultural cooperatives to offer farmers affordable, digital financing. In place of collateral requirements, the company creates alternative credit scores based on data points like a farmer’s delivery history. Emata encourages farmers to grow their farms into a business and invest in a productive future.

We are disrupting the USD240 billion farmer financing opportunity in Africa. Globally, smallholder farmers struggle with financial exclusion. However, nowhere is the funding gap as big as in Africa: a staggering USD240 billion, according to data from Aceli Africa. Yet, agriculture is the cornerstone of African economies, accounting for up to 30% of GDP and 80% of employment.

Banks do not lend to most smallholder farmers, so to invest in their farms, a farmer’s only option is informal moneylenders charging up to 20% per month At these rates, farmers struggle to prosper, and Africa’s agricultural potential remains underdeveloped. Emata is disrupting the way smallholder farmers in Africa access financing. We merge advanced financial technology, AI-powered alternative credit scoring and partnerships with cooperatives to offer digital loans. Our loans empower farmers to invest in their farms and increase their productivity. We dare farmers to dream big!

Since its founding in 2020, the company has won several awards (including “Best Newcomer” at the African Startup Awards 2022 and now the Global Startup Awards). It is an alumnus of prestigious accelerator programs: Silicon Valley-based Plug & Play and Stockholm-based Norrsken. 

Why Uganda of all countries?

Why not? 

Uganda has immense potential in the agricultural sector, but smallholder farmers often lack access to the finance they need to grow their businesses. We saw an opportunity to make a meaningful impact in this space by leveraging our expertise in finance and technology.

What are some of Emata’s key achievements to date?

Being named Best Newcomer at the Global Startup Awards in Copenhagen in March was an unexpected but amazing recognition of the importance of our work. 

Last year, we were privileged enough to be selected to be part of the prestigious accelerator Norrsken, and back in 2021, we were also part of the Silicon Valley-based Plug And Play Tech Center. 

The victory at the Global Startup Awards was significant for Emata as it validates our approach to providing affordable loans to smallholder farmers and highlights the potential of our model to make a meaningful impact in the agricultural sector. Emata proves that smallholder financing can be done profitably if you embrace technology and innovate.

The award provided a platform to showcase Emata to a global audience and opened new doors for partnerships, funding opportunities, and growth prospects. More importantly, global exposure like this can help to change the negative narrative often associated with this continent. For too long, Africa has been portrayed as a continent needing aid rather than a continent with significant potential on its own. Africa is a vibrant continent filled with talented, brilliant people, and the startup ecosystem is proving to be a powerful driver of innovation and progress.

Aside from that, I think our key achievements lie in the work itself; since we started lending in 2021, we have grown to service four value chains – with more to come. 

Looking ahead – what are some of the key things that Emata has its eyes on in the medium term?

In the medium term, we are focused on scaling up in Uganda to reach more farmers and work across more value chains in Uganda. We are also in talks to expand to other East African countries.

As we collect more data on our farmers, we are exploring new ways to help farmers improve their yields and grow their businesses through everything from AI-driven advisory to intelligent savings.

What challenges are you facing and who do you think can help and how?

Like many other fintechs, our challenges are simple and tricky at the same time: Access to funding and talent.

Today, we fund all Emata loans from our balance sheet. Even though we have our own license and there is funding available to support our fast-growing loan book, this is often in hard currency and requires expensive hedging. We are exploring partnerships with innovative banks in East Africa and looking at how we can tap into their local currency funding.

Additionally, any tech company in Uganda will tell you finding quality tech personnel is a struggle. Today, we have a brilliant team of developers, data scientists, product managers, and business people. We got here by hiring many of our team members in the early stages of their careers and training them ourselves. This has always given us the best results, but it is challenging when you are scaling fast and growing by over 500% per year as we do. We partner with organisations like Refactory to help us prepare young talent from a technical and personal perspective for a demanding, fast-paced, but very exciting career in tech.