SLC Agrícola creates Corporate Venture Capital arm and confirms first investment

By Marina Salles

“It is not new that SLC Agrícola has a relationship with startups”, he points out Frederico Logemann, head of innovation at the company. It all started in 2019 with the Agro Exponencial connection program and, since then, the company has put into operation, every year, four new solutions from emerging companies with innovative products and services.

In the first edition of Agro Exponencial, of the 180 startups registered, seven carried out pilots paid by SLC and four were hired and still provide services today. Numbers very similar to those of 2020, when 172 startups signed up for the program, six had pilots and four became suppliers (among them the Byond , with a solution to control people in restricted areas, and datarisk , machine learning and artificial intelligence, which checks the quality of the company’s seeds after storage).

Understanding this, second Logemann, it’s easy to understand the new step. “We saw the birth of businesses that are now three, four years old and have achieved impressive valuations and we have always considered the strategic value of investing in startups”, says the executive. That’s why SLC’s minority investment arm in startups, SLC Ventures, was born.

An agricultural giant with publicly traded capital, SLC has a herd of around 60,000 head of cattle and the potential to cultivate 660,000 hectares of soybean, corn and cotton in the next harvest, given the recent purchase of Terra Santa and the lease of Agrícola Xingu. Every year, its new investments (of all types) are in the order of R$ 250 million to R$ 300 million.

The thesis of SLC’s Corporate Venture Capital

From a strategic point of view, SLC Ventures’ thesis foresees contributions to startups:

• with performance inside the gate

• some digital feature

• and acting in line with the theme ofSocial, Corporate and Environmental Governance (ESG)

“We are focused on doing more with less, protecting the environment and getting closer to startups not just for the financial return. We want to help leverage investments, collaborate with their growth. ”

The goal is nothing more or less than building a portfolio of “companies that represent the future of agribusiness”, amendments Logemann.

For the next five years, the budget of SLC Ventures has already been defined with the Board of Directors of SLC Agrícola and, according to Logemann, the idea is to co-invest in seed capital rounds, series A or B, with established players in the market. Just like it was with the Aegro , whose round was announced last week by the Neofeed.

The startup raised R$12 million from several investors, including advertising manager Nizan Guanaes, management companies ABSeed and SP Ventures, ADM Venture Capital, from the Rendimento group, and Luis Felipe Carchedi’s family office, in addition to SLC Ventures.

Aegro allows farmers to control their main agricultural and commercial processes in an integrated manner, which facilitates decision-making. Easy to use and at a competitive cost, the solution has already been adopted by 4,000 farms spread across 20 Brazilian states.

“For now, we do not intend to lead any rounds and we are going to invest with more established VCs. We’ve already made contact with practically everyone in Brazil and we had an interesting opening, both from investors and startups”, he says. Logemann.

In bureaucratic terms, he explains that SLC Ventures is a holding, not a fund, and that its budget (of an undisclosed amount) will come from the parent company. Investment decisions, in turn, will be made by the body of SLC Ventures and by the board of SLC Agrícola.

In addition to himself, Logemann – which is in the process of leaving the area of investor relations at SLC Agrícola, where he has worked for 10 years, to focus on coordinating the new investment arm — two other reinforcements will pay attention to the company’s contributions to startups. They are: Carlos Aranha, ecosystem leader at SLC Agrícola, and Daniele Lopes, manager of innovation projects. Special support should also come from Fernando Reinach, from the Pitanga fund, who is on the Board of SLC Agrícola.

A startup factory

Already widely involved in Agro Exponential and an initiative of Intra-entrepreneurship at SLC Agrícola, called Ideias e Resultados, company employees will also be invited to participate in a second innovation axis at SLC Ventures.

In parallel with direct investments in startups, Logemann says the idea is to create a Venture Builder, that is, a startup factory, and engage employees to lead projects involving new services and business models within the company.

“We’re working to create businesses from scratch as well, and we’re going to encourage our employees to actively participate in this process,” says Logemann. The proposal is to assemble teams including with entrepreneurs outside the company’s walls to take open innovation projects off the ground. According to the executive, the expectation is that, on average, two initiatives of this kind will be developed per year.

Read the original article at AgTech Garage.