Posted by In 2024 I wrote about YoLa Fresh, a Casablanca startup that had just raised US$7 million to connect Morocco’s smallholder farmers directly with the country’s small fruit and vegetable sellers. It had experienced founders, strong early numbers and a list of respected investors. In October 2026 it closed.
Of all the companies I have revisited in this series, YoLa Fresh is the hardest case, because on most measures the business was working.
The model
Fresh produce is the toughest supply chain to run in emerging markets. It spoils quickly, prices swing daily, and the chain from farm to shop is long and fragmented. Farmers struggle to sell at a fair price, and small retailers have little power to negotiate.
A wave of startups set out to fix this by taking control of the chain themselves: buying from farmers, cutting out the intermediaries and delivering straight to retailers. Frubana in Latin America, Meicai in China, WayCool in India and Nile.ag in South Africa all tried versions of it. YoLa Fresh brought the model to Morocco.
Its founders, Youssef Mamou and Larbi Alaoui Belrhiti, were well known in Moroccan tech. Alaoui founded and sold the classifieds site Avito and later ran Jumia Morocco. Mamou had been general manager of Careem and led 212 Founders, an early-stage investor. Mamou came from a farming family. They studied similar startups in India, Brazil and Malaysia and spoke to their founders before launching in early 2023.
The Moroccan market
Morocco was a sensible place to start. Smallholders account for about 80% of its agriculture, and traditional retail handles 90 to 95% of fresh produce. Few people buy their fruit and vegetables in supermarkets. Between US$5 billion and US$6 billion a year is spent in traditional trade, and produce typically passes through two to seven intermediaries before it reaches the shop.
Agriculture makes up around 15% of Morocco’s GDP, and much of the sector looks outward. The EU is by far its biggest market, taking around 83% of its strawberry exports, with the UK and US well behind. Russia and the Middle East have become important buyers too, and between 2008 and 2018 the value of Morocco’s agricultural exports more than doubled. The domestic market YoLa Fresh targeted is the other half of that picture: smaller farmers selling into a crowded, informal local chain.
How it worked
Retailers ordered by midnight and received their produce the next morning, usually between 7 and 9 a.m., at wholesale-market prices but better quality. Farmers got paid faster and could plan their harvests around the demand data. Retailers paid cash on delivery.
The early numbers were strong. Within about a year YoLa Fresh was supplying more than 1,000 retailers, moving over 1,200 tonnes a month and reaching up to US$1 million in monthly gross merchandise volume. It reported revenue of MAD 22 million for 2023, an 85% customer retention rate and a 20% take rate. Waste was running at 6 to 7%, and the target was 3% by 2026.
In May 2024 it raised a US$7 million pre-Series A round led by Al Mada Ventures, with Algebra Ventures, E3 Capital, Janngo Capital and the Dutch development bank FMO. Total disclosed funding came to US$9 million. The plan was a positive contribution margin by early 2025, an annual top line of US$40 to 50 million by 2026, and expansion outside Morocco in the same year.
What went wrong
Later in 2024, Morocco’s Competition Council approved Al Mada Ventures taking a controlling stake in the company. A Series A was planned for early 2026. It never came.
In October 2026 the founders announced that YoLa Fresh had ceased its activities because it could not raise the financing it needed to keep growing. The shareholders are working with advisers on what happens next, and nothing has been said about the farmers and retailers who relied on it.
Part of the problem was where it was based. Moroccan startups raised only around US$40 million from local investors in 2025, and almost all the venture money in the Middle East and North Africa goes to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE. A company in Cairo with YoLa Fresh’s numbers might well have found its Series A.
But it was not only a Moroccan problem. Two months earlier, Kenya’s Twiga Foods, the best-known fresh produce platform in Africa, went into administration after raising more than US$180 million. South Africa’s Inseco closed and sold its assets.
I have seen the same picture in Egypt and Algeria, and further south in Kenya. Fresh produce moves from small farms through a chain of traders and wholesale markets before it reaches the corner shop, and every link in that chain earns a margin. From the outside it looks wasteful. Up close, the middlemen are doing real work: they buy whatever the farmer brings, absorb the losses when prices drop or produce spoils, and often give the retailer a few days to pay.
What it says about fresh produce
Fresh produce platforms have to do everything the B2B grocery players do, but with goods that rot within days. Cold chain, sorting, grading and same-day delivery all cost money, and the margins are thin. Building that kind of operation takes years of capital, and investors have run out of patience for it.
YoLa Fresh had loyal customers, a decent take rate and experienced founders. It still could not get to the next round. The intermediaries it set out to replace survive because they carry the risk of spoilage and price swings on their own balance sheets, with no investors waiting for growth. Until a platform can do that more cheaply than they can, the middleman will keep winning.
First published in 2024. Updated November 2026.
