Agriventure plans to go public on EGX in 1Q 2027

EXCLUSIVE- Agriventure, which grows blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries for export, plans to go public on the EGX in 1Q 2027, co-founder and CEO Ali Diab tells EnterpriseAM. The board has approved the listing and assigned an investment bank to take the company public, Diab says, without naming it. “It’s no longer a wish; it’s a board mandate,” he tells us. The company farms about 6.5k acres across five sites in Dabaa, Fayoum, and Khatatba, of which roughly 3.2k acres are net growing area. Diab didn’t disclose the size of the offering or a target valuation.

Why it matters: An Agriventure IPO would give EGX investors a rare chance to buy directly into local commercial farming through a public offering. The exchange is home to a handful of agri-related businesses — few of them pure-play growers — but none of them recently came to market through a conventional IPO. The nearest comparable, Gogreen for Agricultural Investment, which cultivates 12k feddans of jojoba, began trading in February 2025 without a subscription, since it already met the EGX’s freefloat and shareholder thresholds — an 11.4% float held by 340 shareholders. It opened at a fair-value reference price rather than one set by a book. Lotus for Agricultural Investments took the same route, debuting on the SME market in 2023, before transferring to the main market in 2024. There’s also no dedicated agriculture sector on the exchange; growers sit under Food, Beverages, and Tobacco — roughly 6% of market cap, and dominated by mills, dairy, and tobacco.

Meet the IPO-hopeful: Agriventure was founded by Ali Diab (LinkedIn) and Karim Hendi (LinkedIn), who got into berries with sister company Fresh & More in 2011 before moving into commercial blueberry production during the pandemic, which Diab says made the company Egypt’s first specialized and pure-play commercial producer and exporter of blueberries. “It’s not an acquisition; it’s a company that was built from the roots,” Diab says, adding that he aspires to rival Morocco’s dominance in the regional berry market within the next two years.

Growing greenbacks is the real draw: The company exports 99% of its harvest — roughly 80% to the UK and European retailers, with the remainder sent to the Gulf, Russia, and the Far East — and sells the remaining 1% locally under its Nature’s Pick brand, Diab tells us. That profile is what carried Egyptian private equity (PE) portfolios through the EGP float: exporters with hard-currency revenue were shielded, Ezdehar founder and Managing Director Emad Barsoum told us this week, adding that his next fund is being built around exports as a hedge.

The company already has the PE seal of approval: Diab and Hendi hold a combined 60% in the company. Morpho Investments — the PE firm founded by former SFE executives CEO Ayman Soliman (LinkedIn) and Education, Food, & Agriculture CEO Ihab Rizk (LinkedIn) — backed the company in May 2025 to fund expansion into Saudi Arabia and Oman. Rizk chairs the board, and Soliman sits on it. Mobica Chairman and CEO Mohamed Farouk (LinkedIn) holds about 16%, while Morpho’s stake wasn’t disclosed.

A place beyond the berries: The berry grower is also moving into substrate manufacturing with Finland’s Kekkilä-BVB, whose material it has distributed exclusively in Egypt for the past three years, with an eye on exporting to Gulf growers — a second revenue line alongside the berry business, though it isn’t clear whether it sits inside the listing entity. As we’ve recently covered, localizing input supply chains and deploying substrate hydroponics is key to insulating growers against currency volatility and capturing higher export margins in Europe.

ZOOMING OUT- The timing tracks a busier bourse: Agriventure would be joining a market that has already seen premium grocer Gourmet and energy solutions provider Korra Energi IPO this year, with the highly anticipated offerings of MNT-Halan and Banque du Caire already underway — but where agriculture, and growers in particular, remain almost entirely unrepresented.

Catch our full My Morning Routine interview with Ali Diab on Thursday for a dive into his early morning habits, how AI and substrate tech drive Agriventure’s farms, and his philosophy on picking the right partner — in both business and life.