Kenyan Startup Pula Advisors raises $20M in Series B round

Founded by Rose Goslinga and Thomas Njeru in 2015, Pula is a Kenyan insurtech company that provides smallholder farmers access to agricultural insurance, protecting them from losses against natural disasters and every other agricultural threat.

In an announcement, Pula closed its Series B funding round with $20M, with investors from BlueOrchard Finance, International Finance Corporation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Hesabu Capital. 

Over the years, Pula Advisors has insured over $2.22B, protecting the losses of over 15.4M farmers across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. To expand to other parts of Africa, Pula is making its services available to Nigerian farmers. Its pilot program aims to provide rural farmers in Nigeria insurance against banditry, disease, and death of animals. In 2020, Pula worked with the Central Bank of Nigeria to insure about 543,000 farmers for the wet season.

Rather than directly insuring farmers, Pula has constructed a network of over 100 partners – charitable organizations, financial institutions, governments, and agricultural suppliers – to reach even remote agriculturalists by integrating insurance into expenses like farm inputs or credit. Each Pula product is tailored to client demands and farmer needs. The offerings, underwritten by insurers and reinsurers, are designed via Pula’s digital platform utilizing historical data on weather, events like drought or floods, harvests, losses, and inputs used to set premiums.

Among its collaborations is a long-term partnership with Zambia’s government, where insurance costs are bundled with fertilizer and seed purchases, reaching farmers nationwide. In Ethiopia, it allied with the World Food Programme, German Development Bank KfW, and a local insurer, embedding coverage in an input voucher scheme covering 122,000 farmers. Its impact is imminent following a wheat rust outbreak in Amhara, where Pula expects to make its largest payout of $800,000 yet.

Pula cites increased investment, yields, and savings among farmers using its products, underscoring agricultural insurance’s benefits for emerging markets like Africa, where smallholders supply 70% of food but only 1% have coverage due to high costs, low awareness, and access barriers.

Funding History

Since 2018, after closing a seed round of $1M led by Accion Venture Lab, Pula Advisors has been able to complete six more funding rounds, leading to a total of seven funding rounds. Following that, Pula went on a funding and grant-winning spree, completing a Series A round with $6M and now a Series B with $20M.

In 2023, Pula Advisors came 2nd place in the annual Africa Business Heroes funding program for African Entrepreneurs, winning a $250K grant funding and fast forward to 2024, raising $20M. This is a testament to the founders’ resilience; at the moment, Pula Advisors has raised a total of $29.7M  in just seven funding rounds.