Drivers and barriers of a platform-based business model in agriculture: The case of Apollo Agriculture

The platform economy largely
focuses on consumer platforms
such as Uber and Airbnb,
whereas business-to-business
platforms receive less attention.1
This article2 discusses Apollo
Agriculture, a Kenyan-Dutch
agro-tech platform that aims to
support small farmers
(‘smallholders’) in rural Africa to
set up commercial business
through a bundled input loan
that they can use to obtain
agricultural inputs. These
smallholders are normally
unattractive as customers due
to their small size and high-risk
profiles (e.g., limited chance of
repaying loans). Apollo tries to
support smallholders with an
innovative platform-based
business model.