Rwandan Insurtech Pula Gets ~USD 10.4 M Grant For Smallholder Farmers

Rwandan-based Pula Foundation, an agriculture insurtech company, has secured a EUR 10 M (~USD 10.4 M) grant from Bayer Foundation to provide insurance coverage to 10 million smallholder farmers by 2030. This initiative, unveiled at the World Economic Forum, aims to enhance climate resilience for farmers in Africa and Asia, protecting them against the growing impacts of droughts and floods.

The grant will be used to support insurance premiums, offering coverage worth USD 127 M across Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malawi, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and Mali.

Founded in 2014 by Rose Goslinga and Thomas Njeru, Pula has developed scalable, data-driven agricultural insurance solutions to help farmers recover from yield losses caused by extreme weather events. This partnership with Bayer will expand access to climate risk insurance, enabling smallholders to reinvest in their farms and build long-term resilience.

“We believe this initiative will enable smallholder farmers to overcome climate shocks, empowering them to contribute to global food security,” said Matthias Berninger, EVP of Public Affairs, Sustainability, and Safety at Bayer. Rodrigo Santos, President of Bayer’s Crop Science Division, added that this collaboration supports sustainable growth and regenerative agriculture.

The collaboration builds on previous successes, such as the 2021 pilot in Zimbabwe, which insured 31,000 farmers against climate risks. Pula Foundation’s Goslinga emphasised that climate resilience is about empowerment, not dependency, and this grant will help millions more farmers secure their livelihoods against climate uncertainty.