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Slow Drip

Brazil’s coffee sector is globally competitive, but the way credit reaches farmers has not kept pace. For many small and mid-sized producers, financing still means slow approvals, unclear terms, and risk assessments that miss what is really happening on the farm. In a crop shaped by seasonality and tight decision windows, timing often matters more than cost, and capital frequently arrives too late.

That gap has created a persistent mismatch. Farmers struggle to access working capital when it matters most. Lenders, lacking clear visibility, tend to price risk conservatively or limit exposure altogether. Capital that should be supporting one of Brazil’s most important export chains often ends up underutilised.

Culttivo was built to close that gap by designing credit around how coffee farms actually operate. The ag-fintech deploys credit digitally through its platform, supported by a network of independent bankers who work directly with producers. Field-level data, disciplined portfolio management, and crop-specific knowledge guide each credit decision.

Credit is originated through private and institutional investors and managed through structured vehicles such as FIAGROs and FIDCs, allowing Culttivo to connect farmer demand with local capital markets at scale. Today, the platform manages roughly US$60 million in assets across its credit structures and serves thousands of coffee producers.

By combining digital underwriting with a physical presence in the field, Culttivo avoids the trade-off between speed and understanding. Credit decisions move faster, risk becomes easier to assess, and capital flows with greater confidence to farmers who have long sat between informal lending and traditional banks.

Clear Cup

Most agricultural credit decisions still start with incomplete pictures. Financial statements arrive late. Farm visits are sporadic. Risk models rely on proxies that struggle to keep up with what is actually happening during the season. For coffee, where yields, quality, and cash flow are shaped by timing and management choices, that lack of clarity quickly becomes a constraint.

Culttivo’s first move was to clean up that picture. The platform brings together field-level signals such as satellite imagery, land use data, environmental compliance checks, and public records to form a more current view of each operation. The goal is not precision forecasting, but a clear view of whether a farm is planted, managed, and on track.

That visibility changes how credit decisions are made. Underwriting can move alongside the crop cycle rather than waiting for paperwork to catch up. Risk teams are no longer blind between disbursement and harvest, and early warning signs show up sooner. For lenders, that reduces surprises. For farmers, it means decisions that keep pace with the season.

By grounding credit analysis in what can be seen and verified in the field, Culttivo reduces uncertainty on both sides of the transaction. Data does not replace judgment, but it gives that judgment a clearer starting point. In a sector where opacity has long been accepted as normal, that clarity alone is a meaningful shift.

Strong Filter

Speed on its own does not make a credit model work. In agricultural finance, and especially in coffee, discipline carries just as much weight. Loan cycles are long, cash flow is uneven, and repayment often depends on how well the lender understands both the farmer and the season. Without that discipline, growth can create more problems than it solves.

Culttivo has been careful about how it builds and manages its portfolio. Credit decisions follow clear rules, and loans are tracked closely after they are issued. Monitoring is ongoing, not something that only happens when a payment is missed. Collections are part of the operating model from day one, not a function that gets added once the book starts to grow.

That approach matters most after disbursement. Farms remain visible throughout the cycle, which makes it easier to spot issues early and engage with producers before situations escalate. Some risks are unavoidable in agriculture, but they are easier to manage when they are identified sooner rather than later.

Over time, this discipline creates a portfolio that can expand without drifting into excess. Investors gain confidence in how capital is managed, and farmers know where they stand. In a sector where credit controls often arrive late, Culttivo applies them from the beginning.

Know Your Beans

Coffee behaves very differently from annual row crops, and that difference matters when credit is involved. Coffee farmers are not making one-season bets. They are investing in an asset that takes years to mature and decades to pay back. Establishing a coffee plantation is expensive, often involving irrigation systems, processing infrastructure, and long-term land commitments. A productive coffee tree can last 15 to 20 years, and walking away from it is rarely an option.

That long-term investment changes farmer behaviour. Coffee producers may delay payments after a difficult season, but outright default is uncommon. Failing to repay usually means losing not just a harvest, but the business itself, along with years of sunk capital. This creates a very different risk profile from crops like soy or corn, where production resets every year and switching crops or exiting is far easier.

Coffee also brings its own rhythm. The biennial production cycle, with a strong harvest followed by a leaner one, is a structural feature of the crop. When a low-production year coincides with weaker prices, repayment pressure can rise even for well-managed farms. Models that ignore this dynamic often misread short-term stress as long-term weakness.

Culttivo has built these realities into how it evaluates and structures credit. Repayment expectations reflect production cycles rather than fixed calendars. Risk assessments account for long-term commitment as well as short-term volatility. Delayed payments are analysed in context, not treated automatically as failure. That crop-specific lens allows the platform to separate temporary strain from genuine risk, and it is what makes the model hard to replicate.

The Long Roast

Culttivo reflects the complementary paths of its founders. CEO Gustavo Foz has spent over two decades inside agribusiness credit, working across origination, structuring, and risk. Years close to farmers and portfolios gave him a clear view of where traditional credit models tend to fail once seasons, prices, and real farm decisions come into play. COO Gabriel Santos brings a similarly long track record on the financial and operational side, translating those lessons into processes that hold up as the business scales.

That shared experience shows in how Culttivo approaches growth. Credit is treated as a long-cycle relationship, not a transactional product. The team expects volatility, understands delayed payments, and designs structures that reflect how perennial crops behave over time. Discipline is not imposed late in the process, but built in from the start, informed by years of seeing what works and what breaks in agricultural portfolios.

Coffee itself reinforces that mindset. It is a crop measured in decades, not seasons, and Brazil’s history with coffee has been shaped by patience, reinvestment, and long-term commitment. Culttivo’s model fits naturally into that context. By applying deep experience to a crop that rewards it, the company is building credit infrastructure with the same qualities that have sustained Brazil’s coffee sector for generations.

Thanks for reading.

KFG

Culttivo is a Yield Lab Latam portfolio company. Please reach out if you’re interested in connecting with the company or if you would like to learn more about how to invest in high-potential agrifood and climate tech startups in Latin America.

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Kieran Finbar Gartlan is an Irish native with over 30 years experience living and working in Brazil. He is Managing Partner at The Yield Lab Latam, a leading venture capital firm investing in Agrifood and Climate Tech startups in Latin America.

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Missing Map

Agribusiness has always relied on farmer relationships, but those relationships do not always provide the visibility or data companies need to grow. Manufacturers send products into complex channels without knowing what happens downstream. Distributors invest in campaigns without seeing how farmers respond on the ground. Even cooperatives, often the closest link to the countryside, operate with significant blind spots.

This lack of clarity creates inefficiencies across the supply chain. Credit teams rely on incomplete risk models. Commercial teams compare scattered pieces of information and hope they are reading the market correctly. Sustainability teams and certifiers often resort to manual reporting and verification just to establish basic ground truth.

Belo Horizonte-based agtech startup Seedz approached this problem from a different angle. Instead of asking farmers to change their routines or adopt unfamiliar tools, the team focused on what truly drives engagement. They realised that if farmers were rewarded for everyday actions that generate better visibility, participation would follow naturally.

Once these rewards are in place, the shift is almost immediate. Farmers begin registering purchases, responding to campaigns and interacting with the platform in ways that show how decisions are actually made, not how marketing campaigns or surveys imagine them.

Engagement Engine

Money drives decisions across every industry, but in agriculture the effect is amplified. Farming is a capital-intensive business with constant cash outflow. When a farmer sees a way to recover part of that spend through rewards or cashback, they pay attention. Seedz built its platform around this reality.

And this value can quickly add up. Some large farmers earn enough rewards in a single harvest to pay for the equivalent of a pickup truck. Others redeem points for agronomic tools, fuel discounts, machinery parts or household goods. The incentives speak directly to a farmer’s daily life, and the response follows naturally.

For companies, the shift is just as powerful. Instead of spending large budgets on advertising campaigns with uncertain impact, they invest a portion into loyalty programs that generate something far more useful: visibility. With a farmer base that now surpasses 150,000 users, Seedz gives partners insight into how real producers behave across regions, channels and seasons.

As engagement scales across the network, these signals reveal patterns that were previously impossible to measure. Everyday activity becomes a source of truth, creating a shared view of the market that companies can finally act on with confidence.

Signals to Strategy

Once farmers begin using Seedz regularly, the platform captures a steady stream of small but meaningful signals. A submitted invoice, a redeemed reward or a campaign interaction may seem ordinary on its own, but together they show how decisions unfold across the season, revealing which offers resonate, when farmers shift between brands and how momentum changes across regions.

These signals form the foundation of Seedz’s intelligence layer. Companies no longer rely on assumptions or field reports that vary by region and sales rep. They can see whether initiatives influence real purchasing behaviour, which distributors gain share and whether loyalty is driven by relationships, pricing or incentives.

This clarity shapes several key partnerships. Mosaic Fertilizantes uses Seedz data to link promotions to actual uptake among growers, refining incentives and product positioning. John Deere applies similar insights across its dealer network and service offerings, identifying where loyalty is strong and where targeted campaigns can drive adoption. Seedz also works with the local consultancy firm Markestrat to help companies compare commercial strategy with field execution and identify where efforts create value.

With this intelligence in place, partners refine their plans with far greater precision. They see which customer segments respond, which cooperatives or dealers drive results, how market share shifts and where budgets should be reallocated. Rather than relying on assumptions, companies act on how the market actually behaves.

Compounding Value

Seedz is unusual in the agtech world because its business model compounds as it grows. Once companies direct part of their commercial budget into a loyalty program, Seedz receives funds upfront for reward issuance and can generate income from this float. It also earns a commission when points are created, again when they are redeemed and retains any unused balance.

Alongside this, Seedz has built a market intelligence product drawn from the behaviour of its entire network, giving partners insight into engagement, channel performance and market dynamics that were previously out of reach. Each new partner strengthens the dataset at almost no marginal cost, creating a moat that becomes harder to replicate with every interaction.

The company has reinforced this advantage through three strategic acquisitions in the past few years. Uberlândia-based Atomic added crop-planning insights and strong farmer engagement. São Paulo-based Perfarm brought operational and management data from producers already using digital tools. Gaivota, backed by Silicon Valley investors, contributed technical tools and integrations that expanded visibility into day-to-day on-farm activity.

With commercial and agronomic data now intertwined, Seedz is well positioned to extend into areas such as credit, insurance, sustainability and any service that depends on verified on-farm information. It is a model that grows in value with every engagement and becomes harder to compete with each turn of the flywheel.

Friends with Benefits

Seedz is built on the complementary strengths of its founders. CEO Matheus Ganem grew up in a farming family in Minas Gerais and understood the financial realities and relationship dynamics that shape rural decisions. COO Daniel Rosa, trained in engineering and product, brought the technical discipline to structure those behaviours into a system that creates insight. They met as students in Belo Horizonte, and together built a model grounded in both field intuition and technical clarity.

Their insight was straightforward. Farmers change behaviour when incentives make sense. Matheus recognised how quickly farm spending accumulates. Daniel knew how to capture the signals behind that spending without adding friction. By rewarding farmers for actions they already take, Seedz created a platform that attracts participation naturally while giving companies a precise view of market behaviour.

That clarity is now propelling the company’s expansion. Seedz entered the U.S. market last year, validating its model in one of the world’s most competitive ag environments and revealing significant room for global growth. With a compounding business model, a strengthening intelligence layer and data reinforced through strategic acquisitions, Seedz is positioned to move into credit, insurance, sustainability and other areas that rely on verified on-farm behaviour.

What began as a partnership between two friends is becoming a model that shows how aligned incentives between farmers and suppliers can move the entire value chain forward.

Thanks for reading.

KFG

Seedz is a Yield Lab Latam portfolio company. Please reach out if you’re interested in connecting with the company or if you would like to learn more about how to invest in high-potential agrifood and climate tech startups in Latin America.

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Kieran Finbar Gartlan is an Irish native with over 30 years experience living and working in Brazil. He is Managing Partner at The Yield Lab Latam, a leading venture capital firm investing in Agrifood and Climate Tech startups in Latin America.

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Ground Truth

In modern agribusiness, doing the right thing is no longer enough, you also have to prove it. Markets, regulators, and consumers now demand hard evidence of sustainable production, from carbon footprints to forest cover. For rural producers, that means turning good intentions into verifiable data. For corporations, it means showing that their supply chains are as responsible as their brand promises. The reward? Access to premium markets, green finance, and payments for environmental services that recognize real impact.

That shift, from good intentions to proof, is where Produzindo Certo thrives. Born from a field NGO in Brazil’s agricultural frontier, the company has spent nearly two decades helping farmers and global buyers speak the same sustainability language. Its “Producing Right” platform combines on-the-ground expertise with digital traceability, transforming ESG compliance from a costly burden into a source of value and trust.

Today, Produzindo Certo monitors 8.6 million hectares, connects over 10,700 farms, and helps preserve 3.6 million hectares of native vegetation. But its real achievement lies in something harder to quantify: credibility. In a world where sustainability claims are easy to make but hard to prove, Produzindo Certo has made doing the right thing measurable and verifiable.

In the Weeds

What sets Produzindo Certo apart isn’t just what it measures, but how close it gets to the ground. The company’s network of agronomists collects social, environmental, and productive indicators directly from farms using a custom mobile app. Each photo, checklist, and GPS point feeds into the Producing Right Platform, which turns those observations into ESG scores, risk maps, and tailored improvement plans.

For clients like Unilever, Nestlé, Bayer, and Louis Dreyfus Company, that means unprecedented traceability, real-time insight into where their products come from and how responsibly they’re made. For producers, it’s a mirror and a map: a way to see their own performance, track progress, and gain access to buyers, certifications, and green credit.

By keeping one foot in the field and the other in the cloud, Produzindo Certo translates the messy reality of agriculture into measurable impact, and turns local actions into global confidence.

Silver Lining

At Produzindo Certo, sustainability isn’t just something to prove, it’s something to profit from. Through initiatives like Reg.IA, Latin America’s first Regenerative Agriculture Consortium, and Bov.IS, a collaborative for low-carbon livestock, the company is showing that verified impact can generate real economic returns.

Both programs unite corporates, producers, and investors under shared sustainability protocols. Farmers who meet regenerative or low-emission targets can access financial bonuses, green credit lines, and premium markets. Each pasture restored, each emission avoided, becomes a measurable asset, one that improves both the farmer’s balance sheet and the buyer’s ESG score.

The model works because it aligns incentives. For companies, verification turns sustainability from a cost into a competitive advantage. For producers, it transforms doing the right thing into lasting value.

Rooted in Truth

After nearly two decades in the field, Produzindo Certo has built one of Latin America’s richest ESG datasets—8.6 million hectares georeferenced, spanning thousands of producers and years of historical context. On each farm, the company maps more than 1,700 environmental, social, and productive data points, combining field verification with satellite imagery to create a living digital record of sustainability performance.

This granular view gives Produzindo Certo an unmatched ability to encourage and measure change, and to monetize it. The company is now extending beyond traceability into green finance origination, ESG-linked credit trading, and impact measurement tools for financial institutions. Only a small fraction of its 10,000 farms currently participate in sustainability-linked programs, leaving enormous room for growth as verified data becomes the new entry ticket to finance and markets.

It’s a rare kind of moat, one built not just on technology, but on trust. Each data point represents a visit made, a conversation held, a relationship earned. That human foundation turns Produzindo Certo’s information advantage into something far harder to copy: credibility rooted in the real world.

The Right Team

Behind Produzindo Certo are Aline and Charton Locks, a pair of environmental engineers who turned a grassroots mission into a regional movement. Their journey began at Aliança da Terra, the pioneering NGO that first mapped Brazil’s agricultural frontier through a socio-environmental lens. Years spent walking farms, talking with producers, and navigating the space between conservation and production gave them a perspective few others had, and a reputation for integrity that now anchors the company’s growth.

Together with CFO Thiago Brasil and CTO Leonardo Pinheiro, they’ve built a business that’s as data-driven as it is people-centered. Produzindo Certo’s next chapter lies in scaling its platform across Latin America and deepening its role in sustainable finance, making verified ESG performance a bridge to capital, not a checkbox on a report.

In a sector crowded with promises, they’ve built something far more durable: proof. And in doing so, they’ve shown that producing the right way isn’t just possible, it’s profitable, measurable, and here to stay.

Thanks for reading.

KFG

Produzindo Certo is a Yield Lab Latam portfolio company. Please reach out if you’re interested in connecting with the company or if you would like to learn more about how to invest in high-potential agrifood and climate tech startups in Latin America.

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Kieran Finbar Gartlan is an Irish native with over 30 years experience living and working in Brazil. He is Managing Partner at The Yield Lab Latam, a leading venture capital firm investing in Agrifood and Climate Tech startups in Latin America.

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Fragile Flight

In agriculture, everyone knows about seeds, fertilizers, and irrigation. But ask most farmers what sets the upper limit of their yields, and few will say pollination. It’s the quietest process in the production cycle, yet without it, there is no harvest. The paradox is stark: bees are essential, but often overlooked.

Today, that oversight comes at a high cost. Seventy-five percent of global crops depend on pollination, and one-third of total crop production is directly tied to bee activity. At the same time, bee populations are in crisis. Climate change, habitat loss, heavy pesticide use, and the spread of monocultures are weakening hives, killing foragers, and cutting short the window when bees can work.

The result is a growing mismatch between crop needs and pollination supply. For farmers, this can mean 10–40% of potential yield left unrealized in the field. For a world under pressure to feed a soon-to-be 10 billion people sustainably, it means one of the most critical levers for food security is slipping through our fingers.

Hive Power

Beeflow starts from a simple but powerful idea: bees can be optimized like any other farm input. The company has developed a plant-based nutrition supplement that strengthens hive immunity, reduces mortality, and allows bees to fly even in colder, adverse weather. A second technology primes bees through exposure to crop-specific scent compounds, training them to prioritize target flowers over surrounding flora.

Together, these innovations transform bee colonies into precision pollinators. Instead of wandering between weeds and wildflowers, bees are guided to the crop that matters most for the farmer. Instead of dying early or staying inactive in the cold, they remain vigorous throughout the short bloom period that defines the season’s yield.

The science is layered with data. Beeflow runs its own pollination programs as a managed service, renting hives, deploying field teams, and collecting seasonal performance data. AI models then help refine decisions on hive density, placement, and timing, giving growers a level of control and predictability they never had before.

Sweet Spot

The insight behind Beeflow is that fertilizers and chemicals don’t create yield — they only protect it. Pollination is the moment when yield potential is set, and if that process underperforms, no amount of later intervention can make up the difference. It is agriculture’s true choke point.

By framing pollination as a professional service rather than a side activity of beekeepers, Beeflow is carving out a new category. Farmers can now treat pollination as a planned, measurable, ROI-driven input, no different from buying a better seed or applying irrigation. Early customers are reporting returns of 7–18x their investment in a single season.

It’s also a mindset shift for the industry. Bees stop being a fragile risk factor and become a performance tool. In an era of climate volatility, that change of perspective — from bees as background actors to bees as frontline technology — could reshape how the food system thinks about resilience.

Busy Bees

Since its founding in Argentina in 2016, Beeflow has tested and refined its model across four countries in the Americas. More than 50 field trials have demonstrated consistent yield gains of 20–60%, averaging around 32%. Independent research in Washington State showed blueberries over 50% larger in Beeflow plots compared to controls.

That kind of validation has turned into commercial contracts. Today, Beeflow works with more than 20 customers, including large-scale names like Agriculture Capital, Fowler Packing, and Agrovision. Every trial to date has been paid, a rare feat in AgTech, and most have converted into recurring engagements.

Now, the company is extending its reach into Brazil, where it has partnered with Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) to apply pollination services in citrus and coffee — two crops where pollination has historically been neglected but carries enormous potential. If Brazil’s coffee sector adopts Beeflow’s approach at scale, it could redefine both productivity and sustainability benchmarks for the industry.

Killer Vision

Behind Beeflow is Matías Viel, an Argentine entrepreneur who saw a market gap and a scientific opportunity. While most AgTech innovation was focused on soil, seeds, or satellites, he recognized that bees were the weakest link in the chain — and that technology could strengthen it.

Viel built a team of scientists across disciplines — biology, ecology, agronomy, even neurobiology — to design interventions that work with bee biology rather than against it. Alongside them, he assembled operators and commercial leaders to turn field trials into a scalable service business.

His vision is not small as he imagines a future where pollination is no longer left to chance, but becomes a system as measurable, predictable, and scalable as irrigation. Viel wants pollination to be treated as a core agricultural input, on par with seeds and fertilizers.

“Pollination is agriculture’s invisible lever,” he says. “If we get it right, we not only grow more food, we grow it in harmony with nature.” That ambition now spans from berries in California to coffee in Brazil, with bees as the unlikeliest of high-tech allies.

Thanks for reading.

KFG

Beeflow is a Yield Lab Latam portfolio company. Please reach out if you're interested in connecting with the company or if you would like to learn more about how to invest in high-potential agrifood and climate tech startups in Latin America.

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Kieran Finbar Gartlan is an Irish native with over 30 years experience living and working in Brazil. He is Managing Partner at The Yield Lab Latam, a leading venture capital firm investing in Agrifood and Climate Tech startups in Latin America.

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Soil Tension

Over the past four decades, Brazil has become an agricultural powerhouse, thanks in large part to a green revolution that lifted yields across soy, corn, and sugarcane. But that productivity came at a cost.

The push for scale relied heavily on synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, mostly imported, combined with intensive cultivation. The result? Degraded soils, reduced biodiversity, and growing pressure to decarbonise food production. With nearly 70 million hectares under cultivation, Brazil now faces a twin challenge: sustain productivity while rebuilding the health of the soil below.

Brazil’s biologicals market is booming. Sales by ANPII Bio members—a leading industry group—more than doubled to 206 million doses by 2024, and the total market is even larger. But most of that growth is concentrated in soy, and product diversity remains limited.

That’s where microbes come in. Beneath every farm lies a hidden universe of microbial diversity: complex, adaptable, and largely untapped. These microscopic organisms can fix nitrogen, solubilise phosphorus, suppress disease, and help plants withstand heat or drought.

But harnessing them at scale, and making them work in Brazil’s vast and varied soils, is a different kind of science. That’s the challenge Symbiomics set out to solve.

Microbial Playbook

Founded in Sao Paulo by two PhDs in molecular biology, Symbiomics uses genome sequencing, bioinformatics, and AI-driven selection to build synthetic microbial communities, or SynComs, tailored for agriculture.

Each SynCom is designed to act like a biological input: improving nutrient availability, crop resilience, or pathogen resistance without chemical residue.

Its licensing model allows Symbiomics to stay focused on discovery while partners handle production and distribution, an approach that’s already attracting major input players.

Its flagship SynComs entered field trials in collaboration with Stoller/Corteva, covering multiple locations with varied soil and climate conditions.

A second initiative is underway with Brazilian biological input producer, Nitro, focused on plant nutrition in grasses. As the company expands its collaborative network, other partnerships are soon to be announced this year.

Data Meets Dirt

While Symbiomics' core strength lies in biotech, its secret sauce is a business intelligence engine, a data-heavy platform that scrapes regulatory databases to identify market gaps, analyse registered biofungicide compositions, and track unmet needs across crops and geographies. That intelligence flows straight into product development, guiding both the biology and the go-to-market strategy.

Today, 62% of Brazil’s registered inoculants use Bradyrhizobium, and just 35 microbial species make up the vast majority of the market, leaving huge gaps in functionality, geography, and crop fit.

This approach allows Symbiomics to work closely with its partners, designing each licensing deal based on projected impact, royalties, and product adoption curves. The result: high-value contracts with clear upside, structured around future performance rather than upfront volume.

Behind the tech is a conviction that microbes aren’t just inputs, they’re infrastructure. With the right tools and partnerships, they can be deployed systematically to solve yield, sustainability, and climate resilience at once.

Rich Roots

Backed by federal and state research grants from FINEP and FAPESC, Symbiomics has attracted more than US$4.5 million in non-dilutive funding to accelerate its R&D, scale its labs, and build out its team. In parallel, the company has filed multiple patents covering its gene-editing methods and SynCom designs, laying the foundation for a defensible IP portfolio.

Its Series A round brought in a strong syndicate: led by Corteva Catalyst, with participation from The Yield Lab Latam, Arar Capital, Cazanga Capital, and MOV Investimentos. The investment marked the first time Corteva’s Catalyst platform backed a Brazilian startup, reinforcing Symbiomics’ position as a leading player in the country's emerging bioinputs sector.

The deal also opened doors for future joint development, as Symbiomics and Corteva explore new applications for sustainable agriculture, building on the startup’s microbial discovery platform and growing library of synthetic communities.

With dozens of companies now active in Brazil’s inoculants space, the race is on to differentiate through data, IP, and biological performance. Symbiomics is betting that a lean, licensing-led model can move faster than legacy development pipelines.

Founder Formula

Co-founder and CEO Rafael de Souza spent years mapping microbial ecosystems in crops like sugarcane and soybean, including leading the Plant Microbiome team at Brazil’s Genomics for Climate Change Research Center. COO Jader Armanhi, also a PhD, developed techniques to isolate, characterise, and culture hard-to-reach strains from roots and rhizospheres. Both founders believe the future of agriculture will be built not by creating new molecules, but by better understanding the ones we already share our soil with.

That vision is gaining traction far beyond Brazil. Globally, biological inputs are one of the fastest-growing categories in agtech, with projected market growth of over 10% annually. Brazil, thanks to its crop diversity, climate variability, and entrepreneurial research base, is emerging as a proving ground. It’s where urgency meets opportunity. And with partners, capital, and science on its side, Symbiomics is showing what it means to grow in harmony with nature.

Thanks for reading.

KFG

Symbiomics is a Yield Lab Latam portfolio company. Please reach out if you're interested in connecting with the company or if you would like to learn more about how to invest in high-potential agrifood and climate tech startups in Latin America.

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Kieran Finbar Gartlan is an Irish native with over 30 years experience living and working in Brazil. He is Managing Partner at The Yield Lab Latam, a leading venture capital firm investing in Agrifood and Climate Tech startups in Latin America.

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Burning Point

In a world warming by the week, fire has become both symptom and accelerant. Wildfires are no longer isolated disasters, they’re a chronic threat, intensified by heatwaves, land degradation, and erratic weather. Across Latin America, fire seasons now stretch for months, and when they strike, they strike fast.

In Brazil, over 25 million hectares burned in 2022 alone, according to data from INPE, the country’s space research institute. Flames sweep through planted forests, conservation areas, and cropland, emitting vast volumes of CO₂, devastating ecosystems, and costing landowners billions in damage. In the world’s most vulnerable biomes, wildfire isn’t just an ecological event, it’s a carbon bomb.

The deeper problem? Most fires still go undetected until it’s too late. Surveillance is manual. Response is slow. And with climate change shortening the gap between ignition and disaster, speed has become the new frontier in fire defense.

That’s where climate tech startup umgrauemeio comes in—its name, Portuguese for 1.5 °C, is a nod to the planet’s critical warming threshold. It’s both a warning and a mission.

👁️ Eye of the Tiger

To stop wildfires, 1.5 °C focused on what matters most: time and terrain.

At the core of its platform, called Pantera, is an AI-powered detection system that sees faster, farther, and smarter than any human observer. Its 360-degree, high-definition cameras scan the landscape day and night, flagging fire starts within three seconds across a 20-kilometer radius, or 125,000 hectares. That’s a staggering leap from traditional systems, where detection can lag up to 48 hours, especially in remote areas. But Pantera doesn’t just watch, it knows where to look. Its algorithm identifies high-risk zones using historic burn data, temperature, humidity, wind, and patterns of human activity, then prioritizes attention where fire is most likely to start.

That intelligence shapes more than just alerts. It guides water strategy too, placing tanks and resources near predicted ignition zones instead of stockpiling them at headquarters. When fire does strike, Pantera’s GPS-coordinated response tools help brigades act quickly, safely, and precisely.

Pantera doesn’t just detect fires. It anticipates them, mobilizes against them, and proves the results, turning firefighting from a scramble into a system.

Ring of Fire

What makes 1.5 °C more than just a smart tool is the system it’s building behind the scenes. With over 137 towers deployed and more than 17.5 million hectares under monitoring—10 million of which are native forests—Pantera is quietly becoming one of Latin America’s largest wildfire detection networks. And with every hectare added, the system gets smarter.

This data density powers Pantera’s predictive models, but it also creates something harder to replicate: network effects. More land means better insights. Better insights lead to better outcomes. And better outcomes attract more clients, feeding a loop that reinforces 1.5 °C’s position with every new deployment.

That reach is already reshaping how fire is managed. In Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, Pantera now connects brigades, NGOs, and corporate landowners through a shared platform. It has helped detect hundreds of fire starts, direct water and personnel to the right location, and prevent an estimated 5 million tons of CO₂ emissions—all while protecting ecologically sensitive areas.

Since launch, Pantera has recorded over 25,000 fire detections across key biomes like the Amazon, Cerrado, and Pantanal. In total, 1.5 °C estimates that its deployments have helped avoid more than 18 million tons of CO₂ emissions—a climate impact with real policy and financial weight.

The company also leads Abrace o Pantanal, one of the world’s largest forest fire prevention initiatives. The project spans 2.5 million hectares, including 140,000 hectares of Indigenous territory, and is projected to reduce emissions by 15 million tons. In 2025, it received the Barcelona Horizon Award for innovative impact, setting the stage for expansion into Europe.

Flames to Finance

1.5 °C currently operates on a SaaS model, licensing its Pantera platform to major sugar mills, pulp and paper companies, and other land-intensive agribusinesses across Brazil. These sectors face some of the highest wildfire risks, often without reliable insurance coverage, making early detection both urgent and valuable.

While this model already generates substantial revenue, 1.5 °C’s long-term vision mirrors Kilimo’s approach to water stewardship — shifting fire prevention from a cost center to a climate asset. By tracking not just where fires start but where they don’t, Pantera helps quantify hectares preserved and emissions avoided—turning invisible outcomes into economic value. These metrics could unlock future revenue for clients via carbon credits, ESG-linked finance, and risk-adjusted premiums.

1.5 °C isn’t issuing credits today, but it’s building the capabilities to get there. Its roadmap includes partnerships with MRV providers and methodology developers, and internal modeling shows the potential: if coverage scales to 30 million hectares, Pantera could help avoid 36 million tons of CO₂ annually, roughly 1% of Brazil’s emissions. At projected carbon prices, that could generate up to 38 million dollars per year in future revenue.

Insurance and risk products are on the horizon too, as companies begin linking fire visibility to premiums and finance terms. For clients, reducing fire doesn’t just protect assets—it may soon unlock capital.

With Pantera, fire becomes more than just a risk to manage. It becomes a data asset, and eventually, a revenue stream.

Founders on Fire

Founded in 2016 in Jundiaí, São Paulo, 1.5 °C has been shaped by a team that knows how slow change can be, especially in agriculture, forestry, and government. Founder Rogerio Cavalcante, a veteran of Brazil’s startup scene, began the company with a bold thesis: that climate adaptation would require not just new tools, but new operating systems. That meant building for the field, not just for the screen.

Cavalcante sold off his logistics business to focus full-time on climate resilience. He met co-founder Eimi Arikawa at the BNDES Garagem accelerator, where their shared vision, combining agronomic precision with digital innovation, took shape. As Cavalcante puts it: "Every second counts, and every hectare saved is a win for the world."

CTO Antonio Leblanc, with a background in AI and systems architecture, powers Pantera’s real-time engine. Eimi leads on commercial execution and customer success. Diego Debruyn, Osmar Bambini, and Maíra Polidoro round out the founding team, bringing strengths across operations, sustainability, and legal structure.

The company’s impact has been recognized by major institutions, including the World Economic Forum, Google for Startups, and MWCapital Awards in Barcelona. They also won South Summit’s 2025 award as the world’s most sustainable startup.

As Brazil takes center stage ahead of COP30, 1.5 °C is showing that with smart technology, wildfire risk can not only be managed—it can become a financial lever for those investing in prevention.

Thanks for reading.

KFG

UGM is a Yield Lab Latam portfolio company. Please reach out if you're interested in connecting with the company or if you would like to learn more about how to invest in high-potential agrifood and climate tech startups in Latin America.

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Kieran Finbar Gartlan is an Irish native with over 30 years experience living and working in Brazil. He is Managing Partner at The Yield Lab Latam, a leading venture capital firm investing in Agrifood and Climate Tech startups in Latin America.

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A Bubbling Crisis

In agriculture, water has always been essential, but rarely valued. Especially across Latin America, where irrigation is often unmetered and underpriced, most farmers rely on instinct, not data. They water too much, too often, not out of carelessness, but because the economic signal to conserve simply isn’t there. Water is seen as abundant, free, and disconnected from the bottom line.

But that perception is starting to shift. As climate change intensifies droughts and water pledges pile up in corporate boardrooms, a new economy is emerging, one where every drop really does count.

That’s the economy Kilimo was built to unlock.

The Big Pivot

Kilimo began with a straightforward offer to farmers: a better way to irrigate. No sensors, no hardware, just a smart, software-based recommendation engine powered by weather data, satellite imagery, and a proprietary water balance algorithm. It told farmers exactly when and how much to water, helping them use less while maintaining or even boosting yields. Set-up took minutes. And in a sector known for complexity and delays, Kilimo’s frictionless approach won fans quickly among early adopters.

But while the product worked, growth didn’t scale as expected. Most farmers, especially in broadacre or lower-margin segments, didn’t feel enough pain to pay. Water is cheap. Energy is subsidized. And in many parts of Latin America, there’s no clear incentive to irrigate more efficiently.

That’s when Kilimo flipped the model.

Instead of charging farmers for saving water, Kilimo found a way to pay them. By measuring and verifying reductions in water use at the plot level, they began turning those savings into environmental assets—assets that companies could purchase to compensate for their own water footprints. From there, a new flywheel emerged: the more farmers adopted Kilimo’s tools, the more verified savings the platform could generate. And the more water savings it could verify, the more it could offer to corporate buyers.

The shift wasn’t just commercial. It redefined what Kilimo was. No longer just an agtech company selling irrigation advice, it became a climate platform facilitating collective action across watersheds, with farmers at the center, not the periphery.

Making Waves

What Kilimo understood early - then proved through iteration - is that water scarcity isn’t just a technical challenge. It’s an economic one. Most farmers won’t adopt new tools unless they see a direct return. And most companies won’t meet their sustainability goals unless someone helps them do it credibly, at scale.

By sitting at the intersection of those needs, Kilimo unlocked a new kind of value chain. Their platform doesn’t just track moisture. It tracks impact. It transforms invisible behaviors, like using less water, into auditable metrics that companies can claim. And it puts money in farmers’ hands for every cubic meter conserved.

This shift turned a “nice-to-have” agronomic tool into a must-have financial enabler. It also moved Kilimo out of the crowded precision ag category and into a far more scalable space: verified environmental outcomes.

In a world increasingly shaped by ESG pressures, climate risk, and natural capital accounting, Kilimo’s insight was simple but powerful: if farmers are saving the planet, they should be getting paid for it.

Going with the Flow

Kilimo is now active in seven countries across Latin America and Europe, with its platform monitoring over 220,000 hectares and supporting more than 40 crop types. Through its irrigation intelligence and verified water savings programs, the company has helped farmers conserve more than 8 million cubic meters of water and turned that conservation into a credible new revenue stream.

On the agribusiness side, Kilimo is used by leading producers such as Driscoll’s, Camposol, and Virú. On the corporate buyer side, the company is partnering with global names like Coca-Cola, helping them invest in water stewardship at the farm level. What started as a pilot quickly scaled into a multi-year contract, signaling rising demand for verified, traceable water stewardship.

Kilimo’s ecosystem also includes a growing roster of global tech companies such as AWS, Google, Microsoft, and Intel. As AI and cloud computing drive up data center water use, these companies face increasing pressure to account for their footprint and ensure the long-term viability of their operations.

That traction helped the company close a $7.5 million Series A in 2024, led by Emerald Technology Ventures, one of the largest global investors in water tech innovation. The Yield Lab Latam, which backed Kilimo at the seed stage, continues to play a key role as the company evolves from a SaaS irrigation tool into a full-fledged climate-fintech platform.

At the heart of that platform is Kilimo’s proprietary MRV (monitoring, reporting, verification) system, built to quantify water savings down to the plot. It turns invisible behavior into measurable, monetizable action. For corporate buyers, it offers a transparent path to water goals. For farmers, it’s an easy on-ramp to climate revenue.

As Kilimo enters Brazil, it brings more than technology. It brings a tested model, where farmers irrigate less, earn more, and every drop saved flows back into the economy.

Fluid Founders

Kilimo’s model may be novel, but the team behind it is grounded in years of hard-won experience. CEO Jairo Trad is a second-time agtech founder with a background in data science and digital infrastructure. CTO Juan Carlos Abdala brings deep expertise in satellite imagery and embedded systems. Agronomist Rodrigo Tissera, one of the first to join, cut his teeth in irrigation research with INTA and the FAO. And COO Tatiana Malvasio blends executional rigor with a decade in social impact and NGO leadership. And Andrea Ramos, Kilimo’s Country Manager for Chile, brings a background in international relations and expansion strategy, with years of experience scaling mission-driven organizations across Latin America.

Together, they’ve spent the last decade navigating one of agtech’s hardest realities: even when the tech works, adoption is never guaranteed. That hard-earned understanding shaped Kilimo’s most important decision, not just what to build, but for whom. By shifting their focus from farmers as customers to farmers as partners in climate adaptation, the team found a new path forward, one built on trust, transparency, and real incentives.

Now, Kilimo is doubling down on expansion, building out its MRV framework, and embedding itself deeper into the water-climate-finance stack. The goal isn’t just to help farmers irrigate more efficiently. It’s to prove that conservation can be profitable, and that Latin America can lead the way.

Thanks for reading.

KFG 🚀

Kilimo is a Yield Lab Latam portfolio company. Please reach out if you're interested in connecting with the company or learning how to invest in high-potential agrifood and climate tech startups in Latin America.

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Kieran Finbar Gartlan is an Irish native with over 30 years experience living and working in Brazil. He is Managing Partner at The Yield Lab Latam, a leading venture capital firm investing in Agrifood and Climate Tech startups in Latin America.

A Clear Road Ahead

For all its global dominance in soy, corn, meat and coffee, Brazil’s ag economy still runs on a fragile, analog foundation: trucks. Lots of them. More than 60% of the country’s agricultural cargo moves by road. And yet, for decades, freight contracting remained one of the most inefficient and opaque corners of the value chain. Most shippers got just one or two quotes. Many relied on legacy brokers, backdoor deals, or favors. Governance was weak. Visibility, almost nonexistent. For input suppliers, cooperatives, and trading companies moving billions in ag products, the system wasn’t just clunky — it was broken from the inside out.

That’s the problem goFlux set out to fix.

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From quotes to compliance: Rewiring the system

Founded in São Paulo in 2017, goFlux built a digital freight marketplace that’s redefining how Brazilian agribusiness moves cargo — and how it tracks cost, emissions, and accountability. At its core, the platform connects shippers (trading companies, input distributors, co-ops) with thousands of approved transporters, enabling real-time quoting, negotiation, and digital contracting.

But this isn’t just a better spreadsheet. It’s a radical shift in visibility and governance.

On the platform, every freight quote is documented. Every deal is recorded. Every player — from the Cargills of the world to small rural carriers — has access to the same data and terms. There’s no space for favoritism or kickbacks. It’s transparent, auditable, and deeply integrated with ESG and compliance frameworks. In a sector where “freight” was often a blind spot, goFlux has made it measurable — and, increasingly, manageable.

And that visibility unlocks something bigger: trust.

With more than US$5 billion in Gross Freight Value processed since 2018 and 150 million+ tons of cargo moved, goFlux is proving that better governance isn’t just ethical — it’s efficient. Customers aren’t just finding better prices. They’re gaining full control over their logistics strategy, complete with emissions metrics, performance data, and automated reporting.

From Diesel to Decarbonization

Where goFlux really breaks new ground is in sustainability. The team developed Brazil’s first CO₂ emissions calculator for medium- and long-haul trucking, creating the foundation for their flagship product: goFlux carbonFree.

Here’s how it works: As freight is quoted and tracked, the platform automatically calculates CO₂ emissions by route, cargo type, and fuel usage. Verified credits — including forest-based offsets from the Cerrado and renewable energy projects — can be purchased and retired directly in the system. All of it is traceable. All of it is auditable. All of it happens inside the same freight workflow.

In 2024 alone, over 1.5MM tons of CO₂e were offset through goFlux carbonFree. One ag input client has already neutralized more than 6,000 tons of emissions over two years of partnership — setting a new benchmark for climate leadership in logistics. And now, goFlux is expanding into multimodal tracking (road, river, rail), green insurance, and emissions control for ag machinery transport.

Where Freight Meets Fintech

While goFlux began by cleaning up freight procurement, its fintech layer is quietly solving one of the sector’s most persistent pain points: working capital. Most small and midsize transporters — the backbone of Brazil’s ag logistics — operate on razor-thin margins and can’t afford to wait 30, 60, or 90 days to get paid. Fuel, maintenance, and fleet upgrades don’t wait. Neither can they.

To close this gap, goFlux created a dedicated working capital solution, backed by a structured credit fund (FIDC), to provide fast, flexible financing to carriers. Instead of waiting weeks or months to get paid, transporters on the platform can access early payment — unlocking the cash they need to fuel trucks, maintain fleets, and take on more loads. For shippers, that means more reliable freight. For transporters, it’s a financial lifeline built into the workflow.

But credit is just one piece of the puzzle. goFlux also provides financial visibility to shippers with tools like the IGFF (Índice goFlux de Frete) — Brazil’s most robust freight index — and custom dashboards for cost forecasting and emissions tracking. The data isn’t just for internal use: it's available via Bloomberg Terminals, offering institutional players a new lens on ag logistics costs and trends.

goFlux may look like a freight marketplace on the surface, but under the hood, it’s a fintech infrastructure layer — designed to move not just cargo, but capital.

The Minds Behind the Marketplace

goFlux’s leadership team combines deep expertise in logistics, finance, and digital infrastructure — with a shared drive to bring transparency and trust to one of Brazil’s most fragmented markets.

Rodrigo Gonçalves (CEO & Co-founder) is a logistics veteran and serial operator who thrives where complexity meets execution. He founded goFlux to tackle the inefficiencies he saw firsthand in Brazil’s fragmented freight system — and has since grown it into a national platform trusted by ag giants, financial institutions, and sustainability leaders alike.

Luís Martinez (Chief Strategy Officer) brings deep expertise in innovation, B2B marketplaces, and corporate supply chains. At goFlux, he’s responsible for steering long-term strategy, including the company’s evolution from a quoting tool into a data-rich, climate-smart infrastructure platform.

Pedro Azevedo (Chief Financial Officer) ensures financial rigor behind every transaction. With a background in corporate finance and risk, he built the internal systems that power goFlux’s freight flows — from payment infrastructure to credit analytics — and is leading the expansion of their fintech stack and working capital solutions.

Renato Castilho (Chief Technology Officer) leads the engineering team behind goFlux’s digital core. With a background in enterprise systems and cybersecurity, he has scaled the platform to support real-time freight, emissions, and finance data — all while maintaining ISO 27001 certification and high availability across thousands of users.

Together, they’re not just building a company — they’re reengineering the operating system for ag freight in Brazil.

The Rails Beneath the System

In Brazil, freight has always been a wildcard — a source of cost inflation, delays, and opacity in an otherwise modernizing ag value chain. But that’s changing.

goFlux is proving that logistics doesn’t have to be a black box. It can be efficient. It can be fair. It can be climate-positive. And for investors looking at Brazil’s agriculture story, this isn’t just a logistics play — it’s a systems play. One that weaves together infrastructure, data, decarbonization, and finance into a single, scalable platform.

Fixing freight might not sound glamorous. But it may be one of the most critical upgrades in Brazil’s ag transition. And goFlux is laying the rails.

Thanks for reading.

KFG

goFlux is a Yield Lab Latam portfolio company. Please reach out if you're interested in connecting with the company or learning how to invest in high-potential agrifood and climate tech startups in Latin America

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Kieran Finbar Gartlan is an Irish native with over 30 years experience living and working in Brazil. He is Managing Partner at The Yield Lab Latam, a leading venture capital firm investing in Agrifood and Climate Tech startups in Latin America.

A New Path through the Forest

Agroforestry has long been seen as a silver bullet for climate, biodiversity, and rural development — but unlocking its potential at scale has proved elusive. Until now. Courageous Land, a Brazil-based platform founded in 2022, is bridging two worlds: global investors seeking climate impact and verified carbon credits, and local land stewards ready to regenerate degraded farmland with tree-based agriculture.

The startup has raised over $3 million in seed funding, led by The Yield Lab Latam and Seedstars, and is gearing up to deploy tens of millions in project finance across Brazil. With its proprietary Agroforestry Intelligence™ platform, Courageous Land offers more than just software — it delivers investor-grade transparency, operational plans for landowners, and an entirely new marketplace for sustainable production and carbon assets.

Why it Matters

Brazil holds 90 million hectares of degraded pasture and one of the world’s largest carbon removal potentials. But until recently, agroforestry projects were slow, laborious, and accessible only to those with deep pockets and a lot of patience. Landowners needed to hire consultants who could take six to twelve months just to map the area and produce a report. Financing that project could take another year. There were no standardized models, no accessible marketplaces, and almost no way for smallholders to reach premium buyers.

Courageous Land has changed all of that.

For investors, it provides transparent, tech-enabled infrastructure to deploy impact capital at scale, often at below-market cost, and receive repayment in cash, carbon credits and long-term upside.
For CPGs, it solves the double ESG bind: investing in emissions-reducing supply chains and securing traceable, sustainable raw materials like cocoa and coffee.
And for farmers, it offers what they often lack most: a clear business plan. CL’s platform generates tailored agroforestry models with revenue projections, CAPEX/OPEX estimates, and direct links to financing, operators, and buyers. Using just the GPS coordinates of a property, the platform can produce a professional, investor-ready business plan in minutes — enabling landowners to evaluate project feasibility, unlock financing, and connect with ESG-driven offtakers. It’s like handing every farmer a ready-made roadmap to regeneration.

It’s a full-stack solution to a multi-stakeholder problem.

The Agroforestry Edge

Unlike reforestation projects, which may take years to yield economic return, agroforestry generates income from year one. Short-cycle crops like ginger, pineapple, okra, and manioc bring early cash flow while longer-term trees like cacao, coffee, and açaí mature in years three and four.

Courageous Land has mapped over 150 viable crops, using data-driven modeling based on local climate, soil, and logistics. These models are constantly validated through field testing across Brazil and built on decades of proprietary field data from the founding team. This makes the platform not just a software layer — but a living knowledge base for what actually works in Brazil’s complex agro-ecological zones.

The Platform Play

Courageous Land’s Agroforestry Intelligence™ Platform delivers a full-service experience for all sides of the value chain:

• Planning – Automated business models tailored to soil, climate, logistics, and crop mix

• Management – Technical assistance, dashboards, analytics, and field tools to monitor project performance

• Financing – Access to long-term capital via project finance SPVs, with repayments often in future carbon credits

• Commercialization – Market connections to carbon buyers and premium offtakers seeking ESG-compliant supply chains

Their first $60M SPV in Roraima is under way, and will scale to over 2,000 hectares. And unlike asset-heavy players, CL doesn’t own the farms — it enables them. That means higher margins, faster scaling, and lower execution risk.

Solving for Everyone — and getting paid to do it

Courageous Land’s business model is just as layered as its ecosystem:

• A take rate on financing (spread, origination fee)

• A cut of the carbon and produce marketplace

• Recurring SaaS revenue, plus technical assistance fees through operators and service partners

• Long-term equity upside from project cash flows

By aggregating supply, de-risking execution, and offering traceable impact data, CL isn’t just building a platform — it’s making agroforestry bankable.

The Minds Behind the Mission

Courageous Land’s founders bring together global capital fluency, deep agroforestry expertise, and a ground-up understanding of Brazil’s land-based economy. Together, they’ve built a platform to close the gap between carbon markets, degraded land, and farmer livelihoods — and they’re doing it with speed, scale, and precision.

Philip Kauders (CEO) is a serial entrepreneur and seasoned fundraiser with a background that bridges Wall Street and Latin America. A former Goldman Sachs banker and private equity professional at Tarpon, he also helped scale unicorn startup LTK. An American who has lived in Brazil for over a decade, Phil blends international investment acumen with on-the-ground commitment.

Gilberto Terra (Head of Agroforestry) has over 20 years of experience designing agroforestry systems across Brazil. From family farms to large-scale cocoa projects, his deep field knowledge spans crop design, soil management, and ecosystem restoration. Gilberto also worked with Vale, one of Brazil’s most valuable companies, where he led major landscape regeneration initiatives.

Luiza Avelar (COO) brings a systems view to implementation. With a background in impact consulting, she has worked across large corporations, research institutions, and her own agroforestry farm to drive regenerative practices and unlock climate finance. Luiza also worked at Vale, where she helped drive and measure sustainability and biodiversity outcomes— experiences she now applies to scaling Courageous Land’s deployment.

“Agroforestry, when implemented at scale, is the only solution I know that can simultaneously address climate change, poverty, food security, and biodiversity — while delivering attractive financial returns.”
— Philip Kauders, CEO & Co-Founder

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave your comments below!

KFG

Courageous Land is a Yield Lab Latam portfolio company. Please reach out if you're interested in connecting with the company or learning how to invest in high-potential agrifood and climate tech startups in Latin America.

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Kieran Finbar Gartlan is an Irish native with over 30 years experience living and working in Brazil. He is Managing Partner at The Yield Lab Latam, a leading venture capital firm investing in Agrifood and Climate Tech startups in Latin America. All views, opinions, and commentary expressed are strictly his own.

Seizing the Opportunity: Fintech Meets Animal Protein

Brazil is a global powerhouse in animal protein exports, yet small and mid-sized farmers in this space remain largely excluded from traditional financial systems. Meanwhile, fintech has already proven its appeal to investors across Latin America, producing unicorns like Nubank, Creditas, and EBANX. Given agriculture’s central role in Brazil’s economy, the rise of an AgriFintech unicorn feels less like a question of if, and more like when.

While there are several agrifintechs focused on the massive grains market, Agroforte was the first to tackle the “blue ocean” of animal protein. Through its proprietary, data-driven credit model, the startup is digitizing credit access and infrastructure financing for poultry, dairy, pork, and beef producers — cutting red tape and approving loans in as little as 24 hours. Following its acquisition of RumiCash — a dairy-focused fintech with 15,000 farmers — Agroforte`s portfolio now includes approximately 50,000 producers, positioning itself as the dominant player in this critical, underserved sector.

What They’ve Built: A Fintech Engine for Rural Growth

Agroforte isn’t just offering loans — it’s building a more intelligent, efficient financial infrastructure for livestock producers.

At the core is a proprietary credit risk model informed by years of production data and real-time inputs from partner cooperatives, integrators, and agro-industries. These partnerships not only provide a go-to-market advantage, but also facilitate data integration that enables pre-approved credit — a process that traditional banks struggle to match due to legacy systems and collateral requirements.

Farmers repay loans via “consignado” — direct deductions from production revenue, often backed by a buyer or coop guarantee. This reduces default risk and encourages long-term loyalty between producers and Agroforte’s partners.

The results speak for themselves: Agroforte’s default rate is just 1%, far below the industry average of 5–10%.

Its model spans short- and long-term credit. Around 40% of AUM goes to working capital — including feed, vet supplies, and thin cattle for finishing — while 60% supports infrastructure like poultry sheds, irrigation, biodigesters, and solar systems.

As of Q1 2025, Agroforte manages R$100 million (US$20M) in AUM, with targets of R$250M (US$50M) by year-end, R$1.5B (US$300M) by 2028, and R$5B (US$1B) by 2030.

Momentum is building. Agroforte now manages Brazil’s first state-backed Fiagro fund in Paraná — a R$1B (US$200M) initiative to finance livestock infrastructure — and has partnered with JBS, the world’s largest meat company, to support beef suppliers. With over 750 credit operations in 2024 and that number already matched in Q1 2025, Agroforte expects to surpass 4,000 operations this year.

Driving Impact: ESG at the Core of Agroforte’s Model

Agroforte’s growth strategy is deeply aligned with its ESG commitments — positioning sustainability not as a separate pillar, but as a built-in engine for agricultural transformation.

Environmental & Animal Welfare

On the environmental and animal welfare front, Agroforte directs financing toward upgrades that have a measurable impact.

In poultry operations, farmers are installing modern ventilation systems and water-saving infrastructure.

In beef and dairy, investments in genetics and nutrition are reducing methane emissions per kilo of protein — a critical metric for processors focused on Scope 3 targets.

Meanwhile, the financing of renewable energy solutions, including biogas and solar, is helping producers transition to more sustainable, low-emission farm operations.

Social Inclusion & Productivity Gains

Agroforte’s embedded finance model has become a key channel for financial inclusion, serving small and mid-sized producers typically excluded from formal credit. Most loans are approved within 24 hours and tied directly to production cash flow.

This isn’t just about access — it’s about impact.

An independent 2024 case study with 255 poultry producers linked to AveNorte found that within 6–12 months of receiving Agroforte financing, farmers significantly outperformed a control group on multiple metrics:

• +13.9% increase in revenue

• +10% rise in payment per bird

• -10% drop in mortality rates

• +5.6% improvement in production factor (feed efficiency × viability)

These improvements reversed historical performance gaps. Before receiving credit, Agroforte clients had lower productivity than their peers. After financing, they closed that gap — and in some cases, exceeded average benchmarks.

Institutional Commitment

Institutionally, Agroforte’s ESG strategy is backed by a formal plan developed with external experts. This includes an approved sustainability policy, internal training manuals, and a comprehensive ESG toolkit. A structured monitoring system tracks performance through quarterly reports, while clearly defined KPIs guide decision-making and continuous improvement.

By embedding ESG directly into its risk model, operational strategy, and product design, Agroforte is future-proofing Brazil’s livestock sector — making it more productive, more inclusive, and more sustainable.

Founder’s Vision: Reimagining Finance for the Farmgate

At the core of Agroforte’s strategy is a founding team that blends deep financial expertise with a pragmatic, entrepreneurial view of agriculture’s realities. Together, they’re not just solving for today’s inefficiencies — they’re building the financial rails for tomorrow’s rural economy.

Felipe D’Avila (CEO) brings global entrepreneurial energy to the team, having led Juiceology in the U.S. and worked across Latin America in strategic consulting. He also has deep industry roots — his family helped found Sadia, now Brasil Foods (BRF).

Gustavo Andrade (CTO) has over 18 years of experience designing financial products and risk models across Brazil’s banking and fintech sectors, giving Agroforte a strong technical edge in credit modeling and solution architecture.

Carlos Mascarenhas (CFO) has spent three decades in agribusiness credit and guarantees, with stints at Unibanco, Safra, and Itaú BBA. His institutional knowledge is key as Agroforte expands into structured finance and prepares to eventually become a financial institution.

Marcio Cardoso (COO) brings decades of experience managing financial operations and scaling high-performing teams across institutions like Citi and Voiter. His deep operational know-how is critical to ensuring Agroforte can scale its ambitious credit and infrastructure programs efficiently.

Gustavo Peloso (CGO) previously led Santander’s agri credit initiatives and has held leadership roles at Santander and Letsbank. His expertise in rural finance strategy and market expansion plays a central role in Agroforte’s push to grow distribution through new channels and partnerships.

Agroforte’s founders are executing on a bold, multi-pronged vision. Their long-term strategy includes transforming Agroforte into a regulated Financial Institution to reduce the cost of capital and unlock more efficient, affordable credit for farmers.

They plan to invest heavily in technology and artificial intelligence to optimize underwriting, reduce customer acquisition and servicing costs, and develop increasingly personalized credit offerings.

At the same time, they aim to scale up customer acquisition through new commercial partnerships and distribution channels, allowing them to take share from an outdated and inefficient rural banking system. The goal is to create a more frictionless, data-driven, and inclusive financial ecosystem that truly meets the needs of rural Brazil.

Agroforte isn’t just digitizing rural finance. It’s rebuilding it — smarter, faster, and from the ground up.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave your comments below!

KFG

Agroforte is a Yield Lab Latam portfolio company. Please reach out if you're interested in connecting with the company or learning how to invest in high-potential agrifood and climate tech startups in Latin America.

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Kieran Finbar Gartlan is an Irish native with over 30 years experience living and working in Brazil. He is Managing Partner at The Yield Lab Latam, a leading venture capital firm investing in Agrifood and Climate Tech startups in Latin America.

Most Ag Marketplaces Fail—Here’s Why Grao Direto Didn’t

Building a successful digital marketplace in agriculture is like trying to grow soybeans in the Sahara—possible, just look at Mato Grosso—but incredibly difficult.

The vast majority of AgTech marketplaces fail before they ever gain traction. The reason? They start at the wrong end of the problem.

I’ve seen it happen many times. Founders and investors get captivated by the allure of an efficient and liquid digital marketplace, dreaming of an “Amazon for Ag.” But what they miss is that marketplaces don’t succeed because of their technology; they succeed because of their networks. And networks are notoriously difficult to build.

I first met Alexandre Borges, Grao Direto’s founder, back when I worked at CME Group, the world’s largest agricultural marketplace. One of my pet projects at the time was studying physical Ag marketplaces, mainly because of their strategic connection to derivative marketplaces like the CBOT.

I knew back then that Alexandre was different from the hundreds of other marketplace founders I had talked with over the years as he didn’t immediately want to show me his platform. In fact, he didn’t have one.

He wasn’t focused on software—he was focused on people and building a community. He was out in the field, talking to grain traders, understanding their pain points, and solving real-world problems.

One of his early breakthroughs was helping trading companies such as ADM streamline difficult tasks like digitally signed contracts and dynamic pricing during origination.

This wasn’t an obvious path to building a grain marketplace, but it gave him an inside look at how these companies operated, building trust and relationships that would later be key to scaling Grao Direto.

It was no surprise that ADM and other trading companies later became investors in Grao Direto—they recognized the value of a team that could understand industry pain points and develop practical solutions, rather than just pushing software.

This careful execution has also helped Grao Direto reach an inflection point, and today, with a fresh $15 million Series B round, they have emerged as the clear winner in Brazil’s physical grain marketplace space.

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The Hardest Business Model in the World

Even when you start on the right foot, building a marketplace is one of the hardest business models to pull off.

In the early stages, a marketplace has little to no inherent value. Its true power only emerges at scale—when there’s a deep liquidity pool, tight bid-ask spreads, and enough volume that buyers and sellers can execute trades instantly. Until that critical mass is reached, a marketplace is little more than a fancy interface with no real utility.

At CME, I saw firsthand how challenging it was to transition markets from open outcry trading to digital platforms. Even when the technology was ready—and despite CME owning the market—traders resisted the shift. Change, especially in traditional industries like agriculture, is rarely welcomed.

To move trading volumes from the pit to the electronic market, CME had to identify a specific pain point and find a small but ambitious group of traders willing to experiment with electronic trading tools.

The traditional system relied on orders being physically carried into the pit on paper by "runners." This process was slow, prone to errors, and carried significant risks. A single misread or misplaced order could lead to major losses, and at the end of each day, all data still had to be entered into the trading system manually—a tedious and error-prone task.

The solution was the "eRunner", a handheld device designed to digitize the order process, eliminating errors and delays. This small but crucial innovation streamlined the workflow and made trading more efficient. However, technology alone wasn’t enough—it needed adoption.

The first to embrace the eRunner were young traders eager to gain an edge. They quickly saw the advantages—faster execution, fewer mistakes, and a significant competitive advantage over those still reliant on paper-based trading.

As these early adopters thrived, others took notice. Over time, more traders followed, and the old system became obsolete. Once paper-based orders were replaced with digital transactions, the eRunner naturally evolved into a fully functional electronic trading platform.

Traders loved the efficiency—it allowed them to trade multiple markets simultaneously, unlocking new arbitrage opportunities. Eventually, the market migrated entirely to electronic trading.

This approach mirrors how Grao Direto cracked the physical grain marketplace conundrum in Brazil.

Instead of launching a massive, disruptive technology platform from day one, they identified a beachhead—a specific, underserved problem that they could solve exceptionally well. Taking a page from Geoffrey Moore’s "Crossing the Chasm", they built trust, embedded themselves within the industry, and scaled from there.

So How Did It Happen?

In her excellent article "Just Say No (to Marketplaces)", Janette Barnard lays out a strong case for why digital marketplaces in U.S. agriculture have repeatedly failed. The U.S. grain market is highly consolidated, dominated by a few massive trading firms that have long-standing relationships with large-scale farmers.

Because of this, the barriers to entry for an independent marketplace are nearly insurmountable. Trading companies already know all the farmers they need to do business with, making a digital platform redundant. Farmers, on the other hand, typically have on-farm storage, allowing them to sell when market conditions are favorable rather than being forced to offload grain immediately after harvest.

Their primary challenge is timing their sales, which is why price discovery tools—like CME futures—tend to be more valuable than a spot-trading marketplace. With the ABCD giants (ADM, Bunge, Cargill, and Dreyfus) controlling most of the grain origination, any new marketplace struggles to achieve the liquidity necessary to be viable.

Now, contrast that with Brazil, where the grain market operates in a vastly different environment.

Unlike in the U.S., Brazil's agricultural landscape is far more fragmented, particularly in frontier regions.

Thousands of new farmers have entered the industry over the past decade, and trading firms don’t automatically know everyone, creating a clear opportunity for a marketplace to connect buyers and sellers.

Even in non-frontier regions, where farmers and traders are well-acquainted, both sides still gained from using a digital platform, which streamlined processes in a country where simplicity is rare.

Additionally, most Brazilian farmers lack on-farm storage, meaning they need to sell their crops right after harvest, usually to pay off debt. Their biggest challenge isn’t timing their sales, but securing the best price at the moment they have to sell. This creates a natural demand for a digital platform that can efficiently match them with buyers.

Beyond market fragmentation and the immediate need to sell, Brazil’s agricultural cycle also lends itself more naturally to a marketplace model.

Unlike in the U.S., where grain sales are concentrated in a single season, Brazil’s farmers produce multiple crops per year, leading to a higher frequency of transactions—an essential ingredient for marketplace liquidity.

The competitive landscape among trading companies has also changed dramatically. Over the past decade, many new players have entered the Brazilian market, eroding the dominance of the ABCD traders.

With no single company controlling the flow of grain, the market was ripe for a neutral, digital marketplace to emerge.

Additionally, Brazil’s trading environment is filled with logistical challenges—long transportation distances, a reliance on trucks instead of rail, currency fluctuations, basis risk, and port congestion. The sheer complexity of moving grain through the supply chain creates inefficiencies, and inefficiencies create opportunities for digital solutions.

By recognizing these fundamental differences, Grao Direto was able to build a marketplace that would have struggled to gain traction in the U.S. but was exactly what Brazil needed. The company didn’t just copy-paste a failed model from another market; it built something uniquely suited to the realities of Brazilian agriculture.

The Future of Grao Direto: Unlocking the Full Potential of Digital Agriculture

With strong market tailwinds and growing liquidity, Grao Direto has positioned itself as the dominant digital marketplace for physical grain trading in Brazil. But this is just the beginning.

While many marketplace startups look toward international expansion after reaching scale, the real opportunity for Grao Direto remains right at home. Brazil’s grain market is vast, fragmented, and still in the early stages of digital transformation. There is far more to be done beyond simply facilitating transactions.

A truly digital grain marketplace doesn’t just make buying and selling easier—it changes the way farmers operate. By providing a transparent, efficient, and liquid market, Grao Direto is giving farmers the ability to make better commercial decisions.

With better pricing insights and improved access to buyers, farmers can optimize sales strategies, increase margins, and reinvest profits into adopting new technologies.

This creates a flywheel effect, where digital adoption in one area of the farm leads to improvements across the entire operation. With access to real-time market data and digital trading tools, farmers can track and post production data more effectively, integrate financial planning with sales, and take better hedging positions to protect against price volatility.

A well-functioning, transparent physical grain market also has broader implications for Brazil’s financial landscape.

Today, Brazilian farmers often rely on the CBOT to hedge grain prices, despite major differences between U.S. and Brazilian market conditions, not to mention a different currency and growing season.

A robust local marketplace like Grao Direto creates the foundation for a domestic derivatives market that is more closely aligned with Brazil’s specific pricing dynamics, logistics, and risk factors.

Beyond trading, the platform can also become an essential channel for financial services—offering credit, payments, and even input financing solutions tailored to the needs of farmers.

Just as the eRunner at CME evolved from a simple electronic order entry tool into a fully functional digital trading market, Grao Direto’s marketplace has the potential to evolve into a comprehensive digital platform for everything farm-related.

The future of agriculture in Brazil will be increasingly digital, and Grao Direto is building the infrastructure to power that transformation.

Thanks for reading and don’t forget to leave your comments below!

KFG 🚀

Kieran Finbar Gartlan is an Irish native with over 30 years of experience living and working in Brazil. He is Managing Partner at The Yield Lab Latam, a leading venture capital firm investing in Agrifood and Climate Tech startups. All views, opinions, and commentary expressed are strictly his own.