Nigerian-based agriculture technology company, Releaf, has raised $4.2 million in seed funding and grants to scale its technology solution for the Oil Palm sector in Nigeria. The startup develops proprietary hardware and software solutions to drive the industrialisation of food processing in Africa,

Of the total investment made, $2.7 million is an institutional seed funding led by Samurai Incubate Africa, Future Africa and Consonance Investment Managers. Other participants include Stephen Pagliuca, Chairman of Bain Capital and Justin Kan of Twitch.

The startup has also secured $1.5 million in grants from The Challenge Fund for Youth Employment (CFYE) and USAID.

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Releaf plans to channel the $2.7 million seed funding into the scaling of its industrial oil palm processing technology; on the other hand, the $1.5 million grant will serve as working capital and help in pushing other value-added services for smallholders and small-scale processors. For instance, the grant will support the startup’s plan to train, recruit and retain more women and youth in the Nigeria Oil Palm sector.