This Startup Grew 60 Percent in 2020 Due to Global Concern over Amazon Deforestation

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Sustainability has never been this important on the agenda. At a time when the Brazilian government is being called upon by politicians and international financial institutions to control deforestation in the Amazon, a Brazilian company is growing precisely to ensure sound agricultural practices – Agrotools, a technology company founded in 2007 by Sergio Rocha to digitalize the field.

With a system that collects data on agricultural lands, the company is able to provide producers and managers with data on the behavior of the field. Banks and insurance companies, for instance, use the data collected by Agrotools to assess credit risk and price the value of potential agricultural insurance.

On another front, the company provides an analysis of land use behavior. This allows clients to see whether the raw material they buy comes from a deforested region or whether slave labor was used in its production chain. “We can guarantee the buyer that it is a suitable product,” Rocha says. Large networks use the startup services, including McDonald’s Global, Walmart, and Carrefour. In all, there are over 120 customers and about 200 million hectares monitored.

In full pandemic, the startup achieved 60 percent growth in Q2 2020 compared to the same period last year. “With the attack agribusiness is suffering, the private initiative agenda has quickly adjusted toward a more adequate sustainability process. The banks, rather than penalizing, are rewarding good producers and industries,” says the founder.

A third of the startup’s revenues come from exporting products, which helps at a time when the real is depreciating against the dollar. Today, in addition to Brazil, the company operates in Australia, Paraguay, and Argentina. “I am convinced that innovation comes from adversity. As we have a lot of it in Brazil, our solutions are far ahead of other countries,” Rocha says. According to the founder, the current challenge is to increase the export portfolio, penetrating countries such as Colombia and Mexico.

The company currently has 100 employees, all working remotely since the start of the pandemic. “In the first six months of this year alone, we sold the equivalent of 70 percent of the previous year’s total turnover in new contracts. By the end of the year, we intend to sell over 200 percent of last year’s turnover,” Rocha says.

In April, to expedite growth, the company received an investment of undisclosed value from KPTL management company. In the coming months, the goal is to hold a new round of fundraising to permit acquiring other companies in the agricultural technology market.

Source: Exame

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