Agribusiness & Women-Led Business Financing in Kenya

Agricultural loans in Kenya are usually priced for a twelve-month retail customer, while the business borrowing them earns in cycles. Financing for women-led enterprises runs into a different problem: the enterprise may be trading steadily for years, but the asset a bank wants to see is registered to someone else, or there is no asset at all. Neither difficulty is about the quality of the business.

DGC Finance funds the deficit in a defined project: you bring part of the cost from your own funds, we advance up to 80% of it at a flat 4% rate, and you repay over a term of up to 36 months. Assessment rests on the trading evidence and on the use of funds, not on a title deed.

Agricultural finance that follows the season

A farm or an agri-processor has a predictable shape: inputs are bought before the season, the harvest arrives weeks later, and payment follows the sale. A facility that assumes level monthly income from the first month fights that rhythm. Two things help.

First, the term. A spread of up to 36 months means an instalment sized to the whole cycle rather than to one month of it. Second, the amount: because we fund only the deficit, the loan is measured against what the season actually requires, not against a general figure for "working capital".

What strengthens an agricultural file more than anything else is a document showing the other side of the transaction — an offtake agreement, a purchase order from a processor, or a supply contract with a buyer. It converts a plan into a receivable, and receivables are what lenders can assess.

Financing for women-led enterprises

The barriers are structural rather than personal: collateral held in another name, smaller average ticket sizes that make a file uneconomic for a bank to process, and a shorter formal record even where the trade itself is long established. The result is that capable enterprises are declined for reasons that have nothing to do with their performance.

Our assessment is deliberately indifferent to the applicant's gender and deliberately interested in the evidence. Registration, sales, a contribution, a written use of funds — the same list for everyone. What that means in practice is that a women-led business with steady trade and part of the money in hand is a strong applicant here, where it may have been a difficult one elsewhere.

There is no separate product, no pink rate card and no quota to fill. The fund lends to the file that can be evidenced, and the applicants listed above are simply the ones whose files are most often declined by other lenders for the wrong reasons.

International capital, applied locally

International loans for individuals in Kenya is a category this fund sits in, and it is worth being precise about what that means here. The capital comes from outside the region: the fund is backed by Zoom Ventures, which has taken a stake in the company and committed capital to the lending pool. That money is lent locally, in local currency, through a Kenyan-facing process.

For an individual, that means no intermediary and no foreign account: you apply in the same way a company does, you are assessed by a loan officer, and you receive terms in writing before anything is signed.

Worked example: funding a season

A producer needs KES 800,000 for inputs ahead of the season and already holds KES 160,000 from the previous cycle. The deficit is KES 640,000.

KES 800,000 season at 4% flat over 36 months

Component	Amount
Total project cost	KES 800,000
Your contribution, 20%	KES 160,000
Facility advanced, 80%	KES 640,000
Interest at 4% flat	KES 25,600
Total repayable	KES 665,600
Monthly instalment, 36 months	KES 18,488.89

A shorter term raises the instalment and reduces the total interest; a longer one does the reverse. The right choice is the one the season can service without strain, which is a conversation rather than a formula.

What you need to start

• A business, or a venture you can describe. A registration certificate is enough for the first. For the second, a short written outline of what you will sell, and to whom.
• Proof that you hold your share. A bank or mobile-money balance, a statement, or a receipt — anything that confirms the money is genuinely in hand.
• A note on what the money buys. A quotation or invoice where you have one. Where you do not, a sentence on the purchase is read the same way.

That is the whole list. Nothing further is needed until a loan officer has read your file; anything else is requested by them, in writing, and only from the applications being taken forward.

Frequently asked questions

Next step

If you are financing a season, an expansion or a purchase order, the question worth answering first is the deficit: what does the project cost, and how much of it do you already hold? Everything else follows from those two numbers. If the enterprise is a sole proprietorship without a registration certificate, that route is set out in business loans for individuals in Kenya.

Terms are set out in full on the legal page. The structure of the fund, including the 20/80 split and the repayment mathematics, is explained on the about page and in online and startup business loans in Kenya.