Thola

Thola is a software company founded by Nneile Nkholise that addresses compliance, certification and monitoring workflows. Its original focus was a B2B agricultural produce procurement marketplace intended to give African farmers access to global trade, pairing farmer-side training, auditing and certification with a marketplace where international buyers can purchase goods from producers certified for export to their countries. The company frames the core problem as a two-sided information and certification gap: producers lack access to bodies that can audit farms and issue global trade licences (such as GAP certification), while global buyers lack visibility into which producers are certified and to which markets they may export.

Alongside the marketplace, Thola developed a livestock husbandry monitoring system that captures animal body temperature and behavioural data using infrared imaging cameras, processes it through neural networks and machine learning, tracks livestock movement patterns to identify contact between infected and healthy animals, and applies predictive models to flag abnormalities and recommend mitigation of viral infection risk. Archived data is also used for stock monitoring and herd management.

A later described product line is a compliance-automation platform: a mobile-based system that matches SMEs to accredited local auditors by audit type, location and business model, supports in-field data and document collection through an auditing application, and uses machine learning models to speed evaluation with remote monitoring for continuous improvement. Ratings let SMEs demonstrate sustainability progress to partners and investors. A Greentown Labs member profile additionally describes Thola as offering AI-based energy forecasting and load management for industrial facilities and grid coordination, delivered as a facility-management software suite covering asset management (heat pumps, generators and similar equipment), maintenance management, energy and water efficiency dashboards, and property health and sustainability management, including real-time carbon-emissions tracking and automated data preparation for reporting regimes such as Boston's BERDO.

Founding story

Founder Nneile Nkholise, born in Lesotho and raised in South Africa, previously co-founded iMed Tech, a biotech company making custom medical solutions with CAD/CAM techniques, and in 2018 co-founded 3DIMO, a venture-backed company automating livestock data analytics for health monitoring. While living in the United States she observed that consumer goods citing African-sourced raw ingredients carried no information about the specific farms or production behind them, and concluded there was an opportunity to build infrastructure letting African farmers trade produce beyond their own countries, build skills programs for sustained trade, and give farmers data on farm performance.

Business model

Two-sided and B2B software: farmers and SMEs receive training, auditing, certification support and matching to accredited auditors, while global buyers access a procurement marketplace of certified producers; a separate facility-management software suite is sold to building and industrial facility operators for maintenance, efficiency and compliance reporting.

Revenue is tied to compliance, auditing and certification services for SMEs and to subscription-style facility management and sustainability tracking software; the company projects $144 million in attainable annual recurring revenue.

Traction

Since launching in January 2023, Thola has provided compliance support to hundreds of SMEs, predominantly in the agricultural and food sectors, and projects $144 million in attainable annual recurring revenue by serving a fraction of a South African market of over 2.6 million SMEs, including 800,000 in agriculture and food.

Latest developments

Catalyst Fund announced its investment in December 2023, citing a prior pre-seed round with backers including The Baobab Network. The Greentown Labs member profile describes an energy forecasting, load management and facility management focus and cites a September 2025 news item about ten teams competing for $2m in AI and manufacturing innovation prizes.