Tulaa

Financing for small farmers

Epitaph

“Here lies Tulaa. It connected Kenyan smallholder farmers to input financing and buyers for their harvest through mobile tools and agent networks. After its 2018 seed round the updates stopped, the site and accounts went quiet, and no closing word was ever given.”

Overview

Born: 2016 (Year)
Died: October 2019 (Month)
Lifespan: 4 years
Fate: Shut down
Headquarters: 🇰🇪 Kenya
Category: Fintech
Stage at death: Seed
Primary cause: Unknown

Death certificate

Timeline

July 2017Founding
Hillary Miller-Wise founds Tulaa in Kenya to connect smallholder farmers to financing and markets
August 2018Seed funding
Raises approximately $627K led by AHL Venture Partners
February 2019Follow-on investment
Beyond Capital Fund takes an equity stake as its eighth portfolio company

Autopsy report

Why did Tulaa shut down?

Tulaa, a Kenyan agtech startup connecting smallholder farmers to input financing and produce markets via mobile technology and agent networks, raised roughly $627K-$657K in seed funding from AHL Venture Partners and Beyond Capital Fund by early 2019. No dedicated shutdown article, announcement, or explanation could be found; the company's website and social media accounts have simply been inactive since around 2019.

What Tulaa attempted

Tulaa built a mobile-and-agent-network platform connecting Kenyan smallholder farmers with affordable agricultural-input financing and buyers/markets for their produce.

What worked

Raised approximately $627K-$657K in seed funding (led by AHL Venture Partners in August 2018, with Beyond Capital Fund taking an equity stake as its eighth portfolio company by February 2019); received positive press coverage addressing the large agricultural financing gap in Kenya (founder Hillary Miller-Wise cited that under 4% of Kenyan bank loans went to agriculture against roughly $30B in smallholder financing need).

What happened

Unknown — no dedicated closure coverage was found; the company's last confirmed public activity in available sources is coverage of its 2018-2019 seed funding round, after which its website and social media accounts went dark.

Lessons for future builders

Financing farm inputs locks up cash and rides on harvests and repayment you do not control, which sank Tulaa in 2020. Prove the loan book repays across a full season and keep lending capital in reserve before expanding agent networks.