Backed Novastar to unlock investment into climate-smart smallholder solutions
2025
About the company
- Novastar Ventures target Africa’s £60B+ smallholder agriculture opportunity by investing in scalable climate-smart solutions
- Raising a dedicated climate fund to back early-stage ventures that strengthen smallholder resilience and deliver measurable climate impact
- Focusing on inclusive, systems-based models that address market fragmentation and operational barriers across the agri value chain in Africa
Their challenge
- Faced difficulty quantifying market demand across fragmented, under-researched sectors like smallholder agriculture, slowing investor decision-making
- Struggled with investor confidence on scale and viability, with limited data available to back claims around opportunity size
The outputs received were high quality and in such a short time frame – it was impressive
Investment Director, Novastar Ventures
Backed Novastar to unlock investment into climate-smart smallholder solutions
How we helped1
- Sized the opportunity across seven climate-smart sectors to validate smallholder market potential
- Developed a robust, data-backed investment case to strengthen due diligence and investor outreach
- Facilitated investor introductions and supported early-stage fundraising efforts
Growth Gateway helped to size the smallholder farmer market to show how fast the market is currently growing which supported Novastar’s due-diligence process to appease investor concerns
Investment Director, Novastar Ventures
Impact generated
- Unlocked investor interest in a £60B+ smallholder opportunity through confidence in market
- Gained early fundraising momentum, with £110M targeted for a climate-smart agriculture fund
£60B+
Market opportunity sized
£110M
Target fund size for climate-smart agriculture
20+
Investor conversations enabled
7
Priority sectors analysed
- *Novastar Ventures received support through the Africa Green intervention; figures reflect early traction following Growth Gateway support ↩︎
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