Kenya’s FarmWorks closes $4.1M to expand venture. 1 other story and a trivia

This line-up of stories will help you discover the latest happenings around the tech world, today

 

1. Kenya’s FarmWorks closes $4.1M to expand venture

 

Kenyan agtech startup, FarmWorks, has closed a $4.1M pre-Series A funding round. 

The investment was led by Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund, an existing investor in the company. 

Other participants in the funding round included Livelihood Impact Fund, Vested World, various family offices, and angel investors. 

With this latest investment, FarmWorks has now raised a total of $5.6 million in equity funding.

The primary aim of this investment is to strengthen FarmWorks’ data analytics capabilities and leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to improve agricultural production and optimize planting and lending decisions. 

The CEO of FarmWorks, Yi Li, co-founded the startup with Peter Muthee in 2020.

He stated that the funds will be used to further develop their technological infrastructure and better support the farmers in their network.

FarmWorks plans to expand its network of contract farmers beyond its current operations in two counties within the central region of Kenya, where it currently operates 16 collection centers.

FarmWorks’ successful funding round underscores the growing interest in agtech startups, particularly those addressing critical challenges faced by small-scale farmers in Kenya. 

READ ALSO:African Healthtech, Clafiya closes $610K Pre-Seed Funding. 1 other story and a trivia

By harnessing data analytics and AI, FarmWorks aims to improve agricultural practices and productivity, which could have a profound impact on food security and rural livelihoods in the country. 

 

Tech Trivia: Which of the following data transfer rates is the fastest?

1.25 Kbps

2.5400 bps

3.10 Gbps

4.100 Mbps

Answer: see end of post

 

2. Meta to Charge Cloud Providers for Using Llama AI

 

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, plans to monetize its artificial intelligence large language model, Llama 2, by charging significant cloud-computing companies when they resell its services. 

Entities like Microsoft, Amazon, or Google, who resell the AI model, will be subject to revenue-sharing arrangements with Meta. 

While the company expects this revenue to be relatively modest in the short term, it envisions potential long-term gains from this approach.

Meta has introduced a new condition that requires the major cloud companies to enter a business arrangement with Meta instead of receiving a free license.

 

Trivia answer:10 Gbps

 

Gigabit is more than Megabit as Megabit is more than kilobit. How a data transfer rate is measured often depends on the context. Telecommunication data transfer rates are measured in bits per second (bps). 

For example, a DSL internet connection may transfer data at 20 Megabits per second (Mbps), while a high-speed ethernet connection can go up to 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps).

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