Amini is using AI to close Africa's environmental data gap

Africa is a land of plenty. It has 65% of the world's uncultivated fertile land and 30% of its mineral resources. But its contribution to global GDP is just 3%. One reason for this is the lack of reliable data.

This lack of data has held back Africa's development for decades, making it difficult for businesses to make decisions, investors to allocate capital, and governments to track the impact of climate change.

But Amini, a Nairobi-based climate tech startup is trying to change that. The startup has developed an AI data aggregation platform that helps organisations make informed decisions. Armed with a $2 million pre-seed investment led by European climate-focused venture capital firm Pale Blue Dot, Amini's is poised to potentially revolutionise how data is used in Africa.

Amini’s platform pulls in data from various sources, including satellites, weather stations, sensors, and proprietary customer data. It then unifies and processes this data, and provides it to local and international companies via APIs. Amini empowers farmers with detailed crop data and enables organizations to quickly assess the impact of natural disasters and climate conditions across Africa.

The startup claims its platform has access to nearly two decades of historical data and real-time updates every two weeks and offers valuable insights from the planting to harvesting stages, including water and fertilizer usage.

Investors in the oversubscribed pre-seed round include Superorganism, RaliCap, W3i, Emurgo Kepple Ventures and a network of angel investors. Amini says the funding will be used to expand its operations and develop new features for its platform.