Crossgates Connect Limited, a UK-registered trade technology company with an operating presence in Uganda, has aligned its AI-powered export-readiness infrastructure with Uganda’s national value-addition and economic transformation agenda under the Government’s Tenfold Growth Strategy.
Uganda’s Tenfold Growth Strategy seeks to move the economy from an approximately USD 50 billion base toward a USD 500 billion economy by 2040, driven by export growth, industrialisation, value addition and technology-enabled productivity.
Crossgates Connect is positioning its flagship solution, STIV AI + Verified Trade Passport, as a private-sector verification and export-readiness layer that supports Uganda’s agro-industrialisation, SME competitiveness and international market-access objectives.
“Uganda has the products. Uganda has farmers, processors, exporters and entrepreneurs. But modern global trade no longer moves on production alone. Buyers want proof – identity, traceability, compliance records, batch evidence, farm or source location, document validity and audit-ready presentation.
Crossgates is building the infrastructure that turns scattered SME records into buyer-readable export evidence through STIV AI and the Verified Trade Passport.”
Doris Beth Atigo, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Crossgates Connect Limited Supporting the agro-industrialisation value chain Uganda’s transformation agenda places strong emphasis on higher household incomes, full monetisation of the economy, sustainable industrialisation, value addition and competitiveness in regional and global markets.
Crossgates’ contribution sits directly in this value chain. The company does not replace government agencies,certifiers, warehouses, banks, cold-room infrastructure or buyers. Instead, it structures the readiness evidence that SMEs need before they can engage those systems effectively.
STIV AI is Crossgates’ intelligent trade-readiness mentor. It guides sellers through export-readiness steps using voice and language support, including Luganda, Swahili, English and French.
A seller can speak naturally, for example: “Nina kaawa okuva Masaka. Njagala okutunda ebweru.” STIV AI can then help structure that information into practical trade fields: product, product form, origin, likely HScode family, required documents, missing evidence, farm/source GPS, batch record, traceability status, readiness grade and buyer-facing summary.
The result is not just translation. The result is trade structuring. STIV AI helps turn local seller information into a format that buyers, institutions and export-support actors can understand.
The Verified Trade Passport
The Verified Trade Passport is Crossgates’ buyer-facing evidence profile. It is not a government certificate, export licence, visa, guarantee of buyer access or replacement for official systems.
It is a structured trust profile showing who the seller is, what the seller produces, where the product comes from, what documents exist, which documents are missing or expired, how traceable the product is, what the readiness grade is and what the seller must improve before serious buyer review.
For Uganda’s SMEs, this creates a practical bridge between production and market access. For buyers, it reduces uncertainty. For institutions, it creates clearer visibility of which SMEs are ready, which are promising and which still require support.
Alignment with Tenfold Growth and ATMS
The Tenfold Growth Strategy is anchored around ATMS: Agro-Industrial Development, Tourism Development, Mineral-based Development including oil and gas, and Science, Technology, ICT and Innovation.
Crossgates’ immediate contribution is strongest in the Agro-Industrial Development and Science, Technology, ICT and Innovation pillars. The company is helping SMEs become easier to verify, easier to support, easier to introduce to buyers and easier to prepare for value addition.
The company’s immediate focus begins with agriculture and export-relevant product lanes such as coffee, cocoa, vanilla, horticulture, fish and value-added agro-products. Over time, Crossgates aims to expand the same verification infrastructure into wider SME sectors including manufacturing, packaging, natural products and other value-added industries.
From raw potential to structured market access
Uganda’s economic transformation depends not only on producing more, but on retaining more value locally.
For SMEs to participate meaningfully in that value chain, they need more than ambition. They need records, traceability, compliance visibility and buyer-readable proof.
Crossgates supports this direction by helping SMEs understand what global buyers require before they enter serious commercial discussions.
No structure, no trust. No trust, no serious buyer access. With STIV AI, sellers are mentored through the process. With the Verified Trade Passport, buyers receive a clean profile. With traceability, products can be followed from farm-to-batch and batch-to-farm. With data protection, sensitive identity, farm and business information remains controlled through consent-led access.
Market access without false promises
Crossgates has clarified that it does not simply onboard sellers and leave them to search for buyers alone. The company is engaging buyer-facing networks, buyer associations in Europe and the UK, and FCDO-facing conversations to ensure that the Verified Trade Passport reflects the evidence serious buyers need before they review suppliers.
However, Crossgates is careful not to promise guaranteed contracts. Trade still depends on product quality, price, consistency, buyer demand and fit.
“Crossgates improves readiness, visibility and buyer-facing trust. Trade still depends on product quality,price, consistency, buyer demand and fit. Our role is to prepare SMEs so that when buyers look, they see proof – not confusion’’, said Doris Beth Atigo.
Data protection as part of trade trust
Because STIV AI and the Verified Trade Passport handle sensitive data such as business identity, farm or source location, documents, GPS records, buyer access and compliance information, Crossgates is embedding data protection into the platform design.
Crossgates Connect Limited is registered with Uganda’s Personal Data Protection Office under registration number PDPO-202604-11621, issued on 09 April 2026. The company says its platform will apply consent-led onboarding, role-based access, controlled buyer visibility, audit logs, retention discipline and seller control over sensitive records.
Statement from Crossgates leadership
“The Tenfold Growth Strategy demands a new discipline in how Uganda prepares enterprises for trade. Producers must not only produce. They must present verified proof that buyers, institutions and partners can inspect. Crossgates is helping build that missing layer of structured evidence, so SMEs can move from informal potential to buyer-readable readiness’’, said CPA Bernard Robinson Magulu, Chairman and Senior Strategic Advisor, Crossgates Connect
Pilot focus
Crossgates is preparing a pilot proof cycle targeting serious SMEs, farmer groups, cooperatives, processors and exporters across priority product lanes.
- Seller onboarding and consent-led intake
- Voice intake through STIV AI
- Manual document upload and review
- Farm/source and GPS capture
The pilot is designed to produce real readiness evidence, not empty promises.
Long-term vision Crossgates’ long-term vision is to build one of Africa’s first AI-powered Verified Trade Passport infrastructures for export readiness, supplier verification and buyer-facing trust.
As the platform matures, Crossgates intends to support a wider value-addition agenda by helping verified SMEs identify needs around packaging, processing, quality improvement, standards, traceability and scale. In the longer term, the company sees an opportunity to connect diaspora capital to verified SME value-addition needs, once readiness and governance structures are strong enough.
“Diaspora capital should not only support consumption. With the right verification layer, diaspora resources can help build African value chains. But first, SMEs must become visible, structured and credible’’, added Doris Beth Atigo
As Uganda pursues a tenfold economic transformation, Crossgates believes the country’s SMEs need practical tools that convert production into market-facing credibility.
The company’s message to SMEs is clear: The world may want your product, but the buyer must be able to trust your evidence. STIV AI and the Verified Trade Passport are being built to make that proof visible.
Crossgates Connect Limited is a UK-registered trade technology company with an operating presence in Uganda.
The company is building AI-powered verified trade infrastructure for African SMEs, starting with agriculture and expanding into wider SME sectors. Its core solution, STIV AI + Verified Trade Passport, helps sellers structure export-readiness evidence, traceability, documents, compliance gaps and buyer-facing profiles.
Crossgates Connect is not an exporter, broker, certifier, government agency or ordinary marketplace. It is building a verification and readiness layer that complements public systems, buyer due diligence, SME support programmes and market-access preparation.
