SGS acquired 15% stake of AgFlow

AgFlow SA, provider of trade intelligence services for agriculture products, announced that SGS has acquired a 15% stake in the company.

Agriculture trade intelligence through global partnerships

Founded in 2012 and based in Geneva, Switzerland AgFlow SA operates an innovative trade intelligence platform aggregating Over-The-Counter (OTC) market data on global grains, oilseeds/proteins and edible oils. Launched as a paying service in September 2014, the company serves 140 customers located in 40 countries with data services. Clients include physical traders, suppliers, shippers, primary processors, asset managers and government agencies AgFlow operates partnerships with more than 100 contributors around the world who provide key data to the AgFlow platform and generate transparency on commodity pricing, transportation metrics and cargo movement data.

SGS and AgFlow: a clear synergy

Over the past 10 years, SGS has developed a wide portfolio of market research and information services throughout the agricultural value chain; ranging from the pre-farm gate to the primary processing stage and covering of production trends, crop conditions, quality maps at time of harvest, global trade flows, monitoring of undesirable substances or contaminants, ad-hoc market surveys and more. SGS aims to contribute to and leverage the AgFlow platform to optimize the distribution of its market research and information services. Olivier Coppey, Executive Vice-President for Agriculture, Food and Life at SGS, is set to join AgFlow SA’s Board of Directors and Gennadiy Shulga, Vice-President, Business Development, will join AgFlow SA’s Advisory Board.

From a new player to a credible and independent data provider

This strategic investment puts AgFlow in an ideal position towards reaching its vision to bring transparency on the physical agricultural markets at a global scale. Siavosh Arasteh, Co-Founder and CEO of AgFlow SA commented “In the past 24 months, AgFlow has built a rich global market network and generated unprecedented transparency on OTC markets across grains, oilseeds/proteins and edible oils. Having the domain expertise of SGS will strengthen our credibility and help us execute our vision more rapidly and broadly. We are excited to partner with SGS to contribute to the modernization of the trade intelligence landscape and the agricultural supply chains at large.”