Rwanda’s fish firm Kivu Choice, a subsidiary of Victory Farms in a team with the Kenyan-based parent company has raised $35 million to enable the East African aquaculture group fund operations expansion in Rwanda and Kenya, and potential entries into Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania.
The funds which is the group’s Series B fundraising round completed this month, constitute the largest ever investment in Africa’s aquaculture industry, according to Kamran Ahmad Kivu Choice founder and CEO.
“With the closure of this round, Kivu Choice is on track to become the largest and most sustainable protein production and distribution platform in Rwanda before year’s end, and a global leader in tilapia production within five years,” said Ahmad
At our target production of 20,000 tonnes per year, we expect to be producing the equivalent of almost two-thirds of Rwanda’s annual fish consumption, that is, over 50 million fish meals a year, he added.
The round was led by Creadev, with investors including the Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund (ARAF), DOB Equity, Endeavor Catalyst Fund, and Hesabu Capital. The companies’ founders and angel investors – including Joseph Rehmann, Steve Moran, Kamran Ahmad, and Hans den Bieman – also invested into the transaction.
Kivu Choice’s business growth
According to Ahmad, the rapid growth in Kivu Choice’s business has only been possible with the Government of Rwanda’s support.
“Kivu Choice’s success to date has only been possible with the strong support and collaboration that we have had with the Government of Rwanda. If you want to rapidly scale a business, I don’t think there’s anywhere quite like Rwanda to do so.”
Jean Claude Ndorimana, Director General for Animal Resources Development at the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources said that Kivu Choice’s hatchery in Kigembe, Gisagara District is the biggest hatchery in Rwanda.
This is in addition to the company’s commercial floating cages on Lake Kivu in Nyamasheke District making the scale of their operations in producing table fish (tilapia) poised to have wide-reaching impacts on the Rwandan agriculture sector.
At this rate, the company in addition to contributing to food security and nutrition will generate around 1,200 full time jobs,” said Ndorimana.
Last year’s fish production in Rwanda
In 2022, said Ndorimana, Rwanda produced 43,560 tonnes of fish among which aquaculture (fish farming) contributed 3,900 tonnes and the remaining 39,660 tonnes were from capture fisheries from different lakes and water reservoirs.
“Kivu Choice investment is considered important because they are projecting to contribute around 4,000 tonnes by 2024 and 20,000 tonnes by 2026. This will be a huge contribution to fish production as the country is importing between 10 to 15,000 tonnes of fish and fishery products every year,” he said.
Kivu Choice projections are to meaningfully increase the affordability of fish for Rwandans while investing in distribution channels to ensure that their products are available across the main towns of the country.
Under its 30-year lease agreement with the Government of Rwanda, Kivu Choice will be supplying 1.2 million fingerlings a year to smallholder farmers to help the wider industry grow.
“We are now in the process of scaling up the Kigembe fish farm facility, with investments in state-of-the-art equipment and infrastructure for fingerling production,” said Ahmad.
