News
Releaf Secures $3.3M Pre-series A Funding, Unveils New Technologies

Releaf, a technology company that makes it easier for consumer goods manufacturers in Africa to access high-quality ingredients for their factories, has raised $3.3 million in an oversubscribed Pre-Series A funding round.
The new funding will support the launch of two new technologies: Kraken II – a portable version of its award-winning palm nut de-sheller and SITE – a geospatial mapping application that informs the most profitable positioning of food processing assets.
The funding round was led by Samurai Incubate Africa, who re-invested after leading Releaf’s seed round, with participation from Consonance Investment Managers. Stephen Pagliuca (Chairman of Bain Capital) and Jeff Ubben (Board member at World Wildlife Fund and Founder of Inclusive Capital Partners) also invested.
SITE was developed in collaboration with Stanford University’s Professor David Lobell, a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment, whose team led the refinement of the age identification process for oil palm trees in Nigeria.
This analysis provided foundational yield data for the first layer of SITE. The application leverages cutting-edge geospatial mapping tools to determine how much oil palm is planted in an area and their annual yields, alongside Releaf’s proprietary data on soil type, rainfall, farmer productivity and 3rd-party data from organizations like the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND) and Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) to deliver a dynamic view of farming activity.
Releaf will use this dynamic data set to train Reinforcement Learning Models in SITE that identify the most optimal positioning of supply chain infrastructure for consumer goods manufacturers, creating an effective link with Africa’s decentralized farming system.
Kraken II is a portable, lower-cost version of Releaf’s Kraken – West Africa’s most advanced palm nut de-sheller. It is just as efficient as its static predecessor, costs half as much and can attain 3x profitability because it can be transported to high density farming areas, eliminating more than 80 percent of margin-eroding logistics costs.
The combination of Kraken II’s portability and SITE’s placement and route planning capabilities enables Releaf to target the best opportunities across Nigeria’s oil palm belt rather than being limited to sourcing crops within 100 kilometers of a fixed processing site like existing food processors.
According to Uzoma Ayogu, CTO and co-founder of Releaf, “SITE and Kraken II are the next steps in our plan to fundamentally transform the efficiency of agricultural supply chains in Africa and we are excited to have partnered with an exceptional cohort of investors and collaborators to roll out these technologies.
To make food supply chains profitable, we must maximize extraction yields with leading processing technology and minimize logistics costs by bringing processing capacity closer to farmers.
Before Releaf, stakeholders had to choose between one or the other – large factories had great technology but were far away, leaving most farmers with rudimentary technology to process their crops. We’re now able to maximize both.”
Africa will represent 40% of the human population by the end of the 21st century and the fast-moving consumer goods market will emerge as its first globally relevant industrial sector.
Releaf’s technology is designed to accelerate this industrialization while ensuring inclusive success for the planet, farmers, food factories, and consumers in one of the greatest economic opportunities globally.
Since launching in 2021, Releaf has used its supply chain technology to process more than 10 million kilograms of palm nuts and grown its monthly revenue 7X year on year.
The company has also secured more than $100 million in supply contracts from leading consumer goods manufacturers, including Presco, PZ Cussons, and more. The company’s valuation has tripled since its seed round a year ago.
Rena Yoneyama, Managing Partner at Samurai Incubate Africa, contributed, “Releaf’s success with its pilot Kraken validates its thesis, and we are excited to continue supporting their ambitious vision to create efficient supply chains within Africa’s agricultural market.
They have added key members to their management team and continue to impress us with their rapid commercial growth and technological development. We look forward to more of the same success as the team rolls out Kraken II and SITE.”
Professor David Lobell from Stanford University said, “I enjoyed working with Releaf and using our tree height algorithm to establish the correlation between oil palm age and height to help farmers to get a better understanding of their future yields and make better data-driven decisions on sustainable replanting.
“There is a great opportunity to unlock Africa’s unique agricultural potential by leveraging remote sensing solutions, and I believe this partnership will be a catalyst.”
News
Ould Tah, AfDB President Presses for Scaled-Up Financing and Stronger Partnerships to Realize Africa’s Development Goals @ UNGA80

Sidi Ould Tah, President, African Development Bank Group is attending the United Nations’ 80th General Assembly this week to push the continent’s development priorities and mobilise support for the replenishment of its concessional lending arm the African Development Fund.
High on Dr Ould Tah’s packed agenda are financing, resource mobilization, climate change, African financial architecture, concessional resources, socio-economic fragility, regional integration, peace and security.
As a guest speaker at several sideline events, he will have the opportunity to present his strategic vision, based on four cardinal points: achieving self-sufficiency and unlocking Africa’s potential; reforming Africa’s financial architecture; transforming population growth into an economic engine for job creation for women and youth; and building climate-resilient infrastructure and creating added value.
Since Sunday, Dr Sidi Ould Tah has met with several global development leaders and heads of government.
The president of the Bank held talks with Ms Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, on prospects for strengthening cooperation between the two institutions. Dr Ould Tah praised Africa’s resilience and commitment in the face of current challenges and stressed the need for development partners to work together to build a new African financial system, drawing on each other’s strengths.
In a meeting with UNFPA Executive Director Ms Diene Keita, he affirmed the importance of maternal health, stressing the importance of transforming Africa’s demographics into a demographic dividend.
“This means investing in mothers and girls today,” Dr Ould Tah added.
With Botswana’s President Duma Gideon Boko, Dr Ould Tah discussed the country’s strategic priorities and opportunities for partnership with the Bank. President Boko stressed the need to “diversify the economy beyond diamonds and invest in infrastructure, particularly rail interconnectivity, to position Botswana on major regional trade corridors.” For his part, President Ould Tah stressed the importance of developing natural resources as a lever for job creation for African youth.
Dr Sidi Ould Tah held a one-on-one meeting with Sheikh Shakhboot Nahyan Al Nahyan, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Emirates, who reaffirmed that his government is ‘ready to support the Bank’s mission in every way possible’ and to strengthen the relationship.
On Wednesday, Dr Ould Tah participated in the launch of new National Energy Compacts under Mission 300, a joint initiative between the World Bank and the African Development Bank Group to provide electricity to 300 million Africans by 2030.
A trilateral meeting focusing on continental issues is scheduled with the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, and the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Claver Gatete.
The seventeenth replenishment of the African Development Fund, the concessional window of the African Development Bank Group is coming up in December.
Among Dr Ould Tah’s priorities will be to drum up support for the upcoming replenishment, amidst a global climate of dwindling development aid. On Tuesday, he confirmed that several African countries have pledged support for the fund, which is a key source of financing for 37 low-income African countries.
News
Ag, Ex-NBA Secretary Arraigned for Alleged Cyberstalking

The police on Wednesday arraigned Mr Chinedu Agu, ex-secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Owerri Branch, before an Owerri Magistrate Court, for alleged cyberstalking, defamation of character, and inciting civil disobedience.

Mr Chinedu Agu, ex-secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association, Owerri Branch
However, the case was adjourned to Thursday, 25 September, following the absence of a magistrate to hear the case, and the lawyer remains in police custody.
Agu was detained on Tuesday when he paid his second visit to the police in Owerri, less than a week after he honoured a police invitation.
Henry Okoye, spokesperson for the police in the state, disclosed that Agu’s arraignment was done in accordance with the laws of the land and respect for his fundamental human rights.
Okoye said, “Yes, Mr Chinedu Agu, Esq., has been arraigned before a Magistrate’s Court in Owerri on allegations bordering on cyberstalking, defamation of character, inciting civil disturbances, and conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace.”
“The arraignment was carried out in accordance with the rule of law and with due respect for his fundamental human rights.”
The Owerri Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association was yet to officially issue a statement on Agu’s arraignment as at the time of filing this report.
Recall that Mr Agu wrote a travelogue in which he did a comparative analysis of the Enugu and Imo states under their present respective administrations after the NBA annual conference.
The commentary, which gave kudos to the Enugu State administration of Mr Peter Mbah and knocks to the Imo State administration of Senator Hope Uzodimma, was copiously published on social media.
It was shortly after the article went viral that the police cabled an invitation to Mr Agu; he was slammed with the allegations by the Imo State Police Command.
News
CAC Unveils Measures to Ease Company Registration

Mr. Hussaini Ishaq-Magaji, SAN, registrar-general of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), said the commission is determined to end delays in business registration and service delivery through new digital reforms.
Ishaq-Magaji stated this on Monday at the CAC Stakeholders’ Forum held in Kano, which brought together lawyers, business owners, EFCC, ICPC, and other partners to review challenges and reforms in the commission’s service.
He said the commission had inherited an overstretched registration portal that was unable to cope with the growing demands triggered by compliance initiatives such as mandatory registration of Point-of-Sale (PoS) businesses and annual returns filing.
According to him, the situation created a backlog of applications and placed an unfair burden on customers and staff. “Our call centre and operational departments receive no fewer than 3,000 emails daily, with less than 100 staff attending to them.
“This model is not sustainable and not fair to our customers or our staff. That is why we resolved to change it for good,” he said.
The registrar general explained that the commission had introduced an Artificial Intelligence-powered portal capable of reading and routing thousands of customer requests within seconds.
He added that the AI system, launched in June, had successfully reduced the time for business name registration to less than 10 minutes, a feat he described as unprecedented globally.
“Anywhere you are, without knowing anyone in CAC or paying a middleman, you can register a business name and get your certificate instantly in less than 10 minutes. That is the new Nigeria we are building,” he said.
He, however, acknowledged that other services, such as limited liability company and incorporated trustee registrations, were still experiencing delays due to backlogs, with about 7,000 pending applications being handled by only 63 registry staff.
The registrar-general assured stakeholders that further phases of the digital reform would address these gaps, stressing that technology was now a necessity for the commission to deliver its mandate.
Also speaking, Ahmed Abubakar, Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ungogo branch, commended the commission for its digital reforms, describing them as a “remarkable achievement.”
Similarly, Usman Umar-Fari, Chairman, NBA Kano branch, urged the CAC to encourage companies to fulfill their corporate social responsibilities and create more opportunities for lawyers.
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