Vitara Agritech, a Ghanaian agri-tech company formerly known as Sommalife, has secured a EUR 1.8 million (approximately $2mn) equity investment from a consortium led by the European Union-funded AgriFI facility, alongside impact investor Acumen and a group of angel investors. The capital will be deployed to expand a digital traceability platform designed to formalise a shea value chain that has historically relied on informal intermediaries, and to strengthen sourcing from smallholder producers in northern Ghana.
The transaction marks the first direct equity investment made through the AgriFI Ghana Country Window, a EUR 10 million mechanism managed by EDFI Management Company that targets smallholder inclusiveness in the country’s five northern regions. The window was established to invest in private-sector enterprises and financial institutions that improve farmer livelihoods, with a particular emphasis on value chains such as shea, soy, vegetables, and beekeeping.
The commercial and developmental case
Vitara’s model rests on bridging a persistent gap in Ghana’s shea economy. Shea, a natural fat extracted from the nuts of the shea tree (Vitellaria paradoxa), is a critical ingredient in cocoa butter equivalents for chocolate and confectionery, as well as in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. The global shea market is projected to exceed $3 billion by 2030, and Ghana produces between 130,000 and 150,000 metric tonnes of shea nuts annually. Yet the sector remains deeply gendered and fragmented. More than one million women and young people are engaged across the value chain, but actors face limited access to finance, weak market systems, and inadequate infrastructure. Processing is often physically demanding, with women enduring long hours in smoke-filled environments and exposure to health risks.
Vitara seeks to address these constraints through its proprietary platform, TreeSyt, which digitises farmer profiling, commodity buying, training, and tree monitoring. The platform tracks produce from farm to buyer, generating verifiable supply-chain data that meets the traceability demands of international manufacturers. By aggregating shea directly from farming communities, Vitara aims to eliminate exploitative middlemen and ensure a greater share of the final price reaches producers.
The company reports that 91 per cent of the farmers in its network are women, and that it worked with approximately 47,000 women farmers during the latest shea season. As of late 2025, 150,000 farmers were registered on TreeSyt, with 40,000 actively participating in sourcing programmes. A partnership with MTN Ghana has integrated mobile money APIs into the platform, facilitating digital payments to farmers in areas with limited internet access. Vitara also reports that its fair pricing and payment terms have increased farmer incomes by 20 per cent.
Investor perspectives
The investment consortium combines concessional development capital with impact-focused private equity. Ilona Gruenewald, programme manager for agriculture and energy at the European Union Delegation to Ghana, said the EU was “pleased to support this investment through the AgriFI Ghana Country Window,” adding that Vitara’s model demonstrated how investment in innovative Ghanaian businesses could strengthen agricultural value chains and support the “protection, transparent and sustainable use of vital natural resources”.
Rodrigo Madrazo, chief executive of EDFI Management Company, described Vitara as combining “a commercially strong model with clear benefits for smallholder producers, particularly women, and for the landscapes on which the shea sector depends”. Chris Maranga, Africa director at Acumen, said that for generations the women who harvest and process Ghana’s shea had been “shut out of reliable markets,” and that Vitara was “opening the door to higher, more stable incomes”. Acumen, founded in 2001 by Jacqueline Novogratz, invests patient capital in entrepreneurs serving underserved markets and has previously backed agribusinesses across Africa.
Mawuse Gyisun, chief operating officer and co-founder of Vitara, said the support from AgriFI, Acumen, and the company’s angel investors would allow it to “expand its work with women producers, strengthen the reach of our solutions and build a more transparent and sustainable shea supply chain”.
Scale and scrutiny
Vitara’s stated ambition is to reach one million farmers by 2030. The company also reports conservation outcomes, including the protection of over 1,500 acres of shea parklands and agreements with 59 communities for parkland conservation. Rabo Foundation, a prior partner, has reported that in the 2024/25 shea season Vitara supported 13,450 women, with average income growth of 92 per cent to GHS 3,800 (EUR 298).
However, the scale of the challenge remains substantial. The shea sector’s structural weaknesses — limited access to finance, inadequate infrastructure, and weak market systems — are long-standing and cannot be resolved by a single equity injection. The reliance on European buyers also exposes Vitara to demand fluctuations and regulatory shifts in its primary end markets. Moreover, the company’s ability to verify and aggregate supply from tens of thousands of dispersed smallholders will test the operational capacity of its agent network and digital infrastructure as it scales.
The investment nevertheless signals continued appetite among European development financiers for market-based interventions in West African agricultural value chains, particularly those that combine commercial returns with measurable social and environmental outcomes. For Vitara, the immediate task is to translate the fresh capital into deeper sourcing relationships and a more defensible position in a supply chain where transparency remains more aspiration than norm.