Samson Fentaye Sold Three Tons of Bio-Fertiliser in 2022. Last Year He Sold 94.5.

Most undergraduate theses end in a filing cabinet. Samson Alemu Fentaye's ended in the soil of Amhara, Oromia and southern Ethiopia — and, this month, in the final ten of the largest entrepreneurship competition on the continent.

Fentaye is a finalist in Africa's Business Heroes 2026, one of ten entrepreneurs selected from more than 24,000 applications across all 54 African countries. He is the only Ethiopian in the final ten, and the company that got him there sells bacteria.

The thesis that became a company

Fentaye studied biotechnology at Addis Ababa Science and Technology University, graduating in 2021. His graduation research, begun in 2019, addressed a problem that costs Ethiopian farmers yield every season: acid-damaged soil, and whether laboratory-cultured bacteria could treat it.

He did not leave the research at the thesis. With co-founders Muluken Mulatu and Rahel Selamu, he turned it into Thur Biotech Manufacturing Plc, which was registered in 2022 and now makes bio-fertilisers and biological crop-protection products.

The bacteria are not imported. They are collected from plant roots and soils in Amhara, Oromia and southern Ethiopia, cultured, and returned to farmers' fields — which makes the input a domestic one at a time when Ethiopia's fertiliser bill is paid in foreign currency it does not have to spare.

What the bacteria actually do

Applied to a field, the bacteria settle around plant roots and help crops take up nitrogen, phosphorus and zinc, while breaking down nutrients already present in the soil that the plant could not otherwise reach.

The distinction from synthetic fertiliser matters. A chemical fertiliser adds nutrients and, applied repeatedly, tends to acidify the soil it is meant to enrich — which is the condition Fentaye's thesis set out to treat in the first place. A biological input works on what is already there, and improves soil structure rather than degrading it.

Farmers using the product report yield improvements of 15 to 30 percent, and an average annual income increase of about $280 — roughly 22 percent.

The numbers that got him to the final ten

Thur Biotech's case is not a laboratory result. It is a distribution one.

| | | |---|---| | Annual sales, 2022 | 3 tons | | Annual sales, 2025 | 94.5 tons | | Smallholder farmers reached | more than 56,000 | | Agro-dealer partners | 96 local retailers | | Reported yield improvement | 15–30% |

Three tons to 94.5 tons is a 31-fold increase in three years. The number that explains it is the 96 retailers: a bio-fertiliser only reaches a smallholder if someone within walking distance stocks it, and building that network is a harder problem than culturing the bacteria.

Fentaye has described the shift himself: "We moved from proving that biofertilizers work to proving that they can scale."

The company has raised in stages rather than in a single round — $10,000 in seed funding from Heifer International's AYuTe Africa Challenge Ethiopia in 2023, a further regional AYuTe award in 2024, and $172,000 in grants from USAID CATALYZE.

What Africa's Business Heroes is

Africa's Business Heroes is the Jack Ma Foundation's annual competition for African entrepreneurs. The 2026 cycle drew over 24,000 applications from all 54 countries, narrowed to a Top 100 in June, then to 20 semi-finalists who competed in Nairobi on 21–22 August, and finally to ten.

The prize structure is substantial. The grand prize is $300,000, with $250,000 for the first runner-up and $150,000 for the second. The remaining seven finalists each receive $100,000, and a further $100,000 supports global immersion training — meaning Fentaye's place in the final ten already carries at least $100,000, before the ranking is decided.

The other nine finalists span Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Benin and Côte d'Ivoire, across healthcare, logistics, enterprise software and education. Three of the ten, including Fentaye, work in agricultural biotechnology.

Ethiopia had three entrepreneurs in the 2026 Top 100: Fentaye, Bersufekad Getachew Amare of Eagle Lion Group, and Nael Hailemariam, chief executive of Chapa. Fentaye is the one who went the distance.

Why it matters

Ethiopian startup coverage skews heavily toward fintech and logistics — businesses that move money or parcels between people who already have both. Thur Biotech is neither. It is a manufacturing company selling a biological input to smallholder farmers, most of whom are not the customer any Addis-based startup is designed to serve.

That it scaled 31-fold while doing so is the part worth taking seriously, and the part that is hardest to copy. Bacteria can be cultured anywhere. Ninety-six agro-dealers who will stock an unfamiliar product, and 56,000 farmers who will try it on land they cannot afford to lose a season on, cannot.

The final ranking has not been announced.

> GAP: accounts differ slightly on the company's founding year — the research began in 2019, some coverage dates the founding to 2021, and Heifer International records the company as registered in 2022. Confirm with the company before publication. Fentaye's exact age is reported as 26 as of 2026 but is not confirmed against a primary source.

Sources: How We Made It In Africa — 2026 finalists · Heifer International — Inside Ethiopia's Youth-Led Soil Health Breakthrough · Shega — Thur Biotech Secures $172K USAID CATALYZE Grant · Capital Ethiopia — three Ethiopians in the Top 100 · How We Made It In Africa — Top 20 announcement