Pula is an agricultural insurance and technology company that designs and delivers innovative agricultural insurance products to help smallholder farmers endure yield risks, improve their farming practices, and bolster their incomes. In all parts of the world, but especially in Africa, farmers are deemed too risky by financiers and therefore usually have a difficult time accessing the investments they desperately need to improve their yields.

We started Pula to make life easier for farmers and give them a safety net so that their income and livelihoods are not jeopardized by unpredictable events such as weather changes or pest infestation. For example, when a farmers who has from one of our partners loses crops in a farming season as a result of a flood, we will give them money to replace the lost income. With increasing effects of climate change, agriculture insurance is becoming an even more important need for farmers to not only protect themselves but also to maintain their ability to produce the food we all need.

We are the leading organization in protecting small holder farmers in the world and we have been able to unlock 1.65 billion USD in investment in the sector and reach 15 million farmers. We, however, do not deal with farmers directly even though that is the goal eventually. We understand that insurance is a needed but not necessarily a wanted product, so our business model at the moment is a B2B and B2G model. We work with financial institutions, agribusinesses and Governments who imbed insurance products in inputs and other financial products that the farmers need. We also work with around 90 primary insurance companies and reinsurers from across 18 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

To be able to mitigate the risk involved in the agricultural sector and for this business to work, Pula has to pool the risk at a global level, to allow for diversification and consequently build a stable and predictable risk portfolio. It is the only way to make this model work, by dealing with widespread regions, different countries, and seasons, so that we spread the risk involved. On a country level the volatility deems it unsustainable..

Additionally, to design & price our products effectively, we rely heavily on past data and define a yield guarantee per area by going to the field and collecting thousands of data points at farm level. If the actual yield is lower than the guaranteed yield then our products cover the difference for the farmer.

The core purpose of the fundraise is to support our global expansion into Asia and Latin America as well as diversify our product offering in the inclusive insurance space. We do believe that we have built a model that works globally and that can be leveraged across different types of mass market insurance solutions. Our vision is to the leading B2B and B2G player in the climate resilience and inclusive insurance space in emerging markets.

We shall also use the funds to explore vertical integration by taking on a portion of the risks that we originate and execute via a reinsurance vehicle. After all the proof of the pudding is in the eating. This will allow us to create more trust in our insurance and reinsurance partner ecosystem, aggregate all our in-country risks into a single vehicle so as to access the wholesale reinsurance market. Overall, this will increase the speed of claim payouts, better experience for our customers and increase the take up rates of our solutions.

Build an investable business first and raise money when you have a business with healthy margins and cashflows.

Fundraising is not something an entrepreneur should rush into. Your primary role is to build and run your company well. In Pula's case, we now do our best to enter fundraising rounds with a reserve of cash to fall back on. We have raised other rounds before (pre-seed and Series A rounds) and that is an important lesson we have learned out of that process. Fundraising when your business is in a healthy place gives you more options and takes out the desperation that can cloud your judgement. We at first considered going to market a few years ago, but delayed to get the business to where we believed it needed to attract the right kind of investors and investment.

Ensure that there is chemistry and trust between you and your investors. You need to be able to work together beyond business parameters given that this is a long term relationship. Just like any other relationship, some level of chemistry and connection matters. There also has to be trust especially from the side of investors. Your investors have to trust that you are the best person to run your business and be able to let you be especially when times are tough. When things get difficult, what an entrepreneur needs is trust, encouragement, and room to try different solutions and not micromanagement. One way to find this is to do reference check with other entreprenuers that the potential investor has invested in. Get to know their experience, especially during the tough times, because that is when you truly know the character of people or institutions.