Est. 2020 · Nairobi, Kenya
Growing the Future of African Agriculture
From a horticulture export start-up to East Africa's most comprehensive digital agriculture platform — this is the story of Highland Brands.
6+
Years of operation
300+
Farmers Connected
30
Permanent staff
12
Export markets
Who We Are
Built from the soil up
Highland Brands was founded in 2020 with a single conviction: Kenya's highland farms produce some of the world's finest horticultural products — they just need the right infrastructure to reach the world consistently, profitably, and sustainably.
What began as an export aggregator quickly revealed deeper problems to solve. Post-harvest losses of up to 40%. Farmers locked out of credit markets. Supply chains with no visibility. So we built the tools we wished existed.
Today, Highland Brands is East Africa's fastest-growing agri-tech company — a team of agronomists, engineers, data scientists, and logistics specialists unified by one mission: making African agriculture intelligent, bankable, and profitable for farmers first.
Est. Nairobi, Kenya · 2020
80+
Team members
12
Export markets
Our Journey
Six years. One mission.
Founded as a Horticulture Exporter
Highland Brands was established to connect Kenya's rich highland farms with premium export markets in Europe and the Middle East — starting with passion fruit, French beans, and avocados.
First Digital Tools Deployed
Responding to post-harvest losses and supply-chain opacity, the team built the first internal farm-tracking dashboards — the seed of what would become the Kilimo Platform.
IoT Sensor Network Piloted
50 farms onboarded onto a pilot IoT network tracking soil moisture, temperature, and humidity in real time. Data-driven decisions cut water use by 23% in the first season.
End-to-End AgriTech Platform
Highland Brands officially pivoted to a full digital agriculture solutions provider. The team grew to 30 permanent staff and over 50 contracted specialists across engineering, agronomy, and logistics.
Satellite & AI Integration
Satellite imagery and AI-powered crop advisory models were layered into the platform — giving farmers and agribusinesses predictive intelligence at scale.
Kilimo Platform Goes Live
The culmination of six years of iteration: a unified cloud platform connecting every node in the agricultural value chain — from soil sensor to supermarket shelf.
Our Flagship Product
The KilimoCloud Platform
Kilimo — Swahili for "agriculture" — is Highland Brands' landmark cloud platform. It connects every farm, every input supplier, every financier, and every buyer in a single intelligent network. Going live in 2026.
Kilimo
Digital Agriculture Platform
Farm Data
Real-time capture of soil, weather, crop, and input data — all in one unified farm record.
Production Planning
Season-by-season planning tools that align farm capacity with market demand forecasts.
Input Supply
Vetted seed, fertiliser, and chemical suppliers connected directly to farms through the platform.
Financing
Crop insurance, input credit, and harvest-backed financing facilitated through banking partners.
Monitoring
IoT sensors + satellite imagery deliver 24/7 crop health surveillance with AI-generated alerts.
Logistics
Post-harvest tracking and cold-chain optimisation from farm gate to export point.
Market Access
Aggregated produce matched to verified buyers — local, regional, and international markets.
Cloud Analytics
Executive dashboards giving aggregators and investors a live view across every connected farm.
Built With
Technology Stack
Purpose-built technologies for African conditions — offline-first, low-bandwidth optimised, and designed to scale.
IoT Sensors
Soil, humidity, temperature & irrigation monitoring at the field edge.
Satellite Imagery
NDVI and multispectral analysis for crop health at scale.
Blockchain
Decentralized systems built on top of the best EVM chains with transparency in mind.
AI Crop Models
Predictive advisory: disease risk, yield forecasts, harvest windows.
Weather APIs
Hyperlocal 14-day forecasts integrated into every production plan.
Cloud Analytics
Scalable infrastructure processing millions of sensor events daily.
Our Values
Farmer-first. Data-driven. Radically transparent.
Farmer First
Every product decision is validated by real farmers in real conditions. If it doesn't work in the field, it doesn't ship.
Radical Transparency
Farmers own their data. Buyers know exactly where their produce came from. Partners see exactly what we see.
Regenerative by Default
Every Highland Brands operation is held to an environmental standard. Sustainability is not a department — it's a constraint we design within.
Get Involved
Ready to connect your farm to the future?
Whether you're a farmer, an agribusiness, a financier, or a buyer — there's a place for you on the Kilimo Platform.