Agtechs in the search for Biosolutions for Brazilian Agriculture

Date:09-16-2021

Since October last year in my time outside of large organizations,I have been dedicated to studying startups and seeking information and knowledge about them, and I have dedicated special attention to Agtechs.

In one of my articles last year I had cited 13 in which I believed, for having a disruptive technology, Prepared people and well-organized processes and I am happy to know that almost all of them: Agristamp, Atomic Agro, Bart Digital, Digifarmz, Solubio , Flex Interativa, GoFlux, Grão Direto, InovaFarm, Safetrace, Seedz, Terra Magna and Traive were highlighted this year through their own growth or capital inflow, including with the help of this article.

In the year of 2020, Brazil had an exponential growth in terms of business environment and proliferation of Startups, in an annual ranking carried out by startup Blink, we were in the 20th position among countries, leaving a 37th place in the previous year, being the first place in the Latin America, with a good mix in the items analyzed by the ranking such as: Quantity, Quality and Business Environment.

A great highlight in this environment are undoubtedly the Agtechs, today we have 78 organizations that operate in the sector, including incubators, accelerators and foreign investors that incubated, accelerated and invested in these and other national startups.

To better understand, we adopted the following definitions:

• Incubators are companies and institutions that promote in-house training programs for startups, bringing technological and business model knowledge without direct investment in startups.
  

• Accelerators are companies and institutions that promote in house training programs for startups, bringing technological and business model knowledge with direct investment in startups.
  

• Investors are companies and institutions that promote direct investment in startups.
  

Among the Agtechs,  we differentiate them into three segments: Before, Inside and after the Farm . Today we have 199 agtechs operating before the farm, 657 inside the farm and 718 agtechs after the farm, totaling 1574 agtechs present in almost all states of the federation.

In the chart Bellow we can see where is located the Agtechs in Brazil:

Among these, I have dedicated myself to studying more the agtechs incubated at Agtech Garage, being the main reason  the dynamism of information they have and a complete  flow of information open to everyone.

Among the companies incubated and invested in Agtech Garage are: agritrade, broad intelligence, agrymet, brCarbon, Drop, e-ctare, Fluro-Sat, gavea, Geplant, Hakkuna, Implanta it solutions, SmartBreeder, IDMAQ, Commo-tech Marketplace, Inceres , wolk, Shooju, Leigado, e.Trap, Quickium, MeSintoSeguro, Agro Trucker, Forlidar, Genetic, agro2business, Sensix, AhGRO, Sintecsys, Gamaya, Nano scoping, Agripad, GeoApis, BRFLOR, Atomic Agro, Farmbox, rural digital, werkey.

I recently highlighted two of them in my articles, A Agro2business for the marketplace model that works with the circular economy and about Nano scoping because I believe a lot in nanotechnology for agriculture.

Now with a new challenge in structuring a BioSolutions company, which will be called Valeouro Biotec, I'm having the opportunity to get to know in more depth some of these startups for synergies, Co-development and even Market Access.

In Brazil we were able to create a sustainable and competitive model of tropical agriculture unparalleled in the world, with an agriculture based on science, innovation, and entrepreneurship and with the growth and the need for more sustainable solutions, I am sure that we will also be references in the search for these solutions.

 Among the 199 Agtechs before the farm, we have 39 that are seeking solutions for biological control and integrated pest management.

These companies offer solutions ranging from the manufacture of microorganisms by the producer himself to solutions such as scouting and diagnostics to control pests, diseases and weeds.

One of the standouts in my opinion is Genica, created by Fernando Reis, an entrepreneur and who was already responsible for founding a large company in Brazil, Fast Agro, with the support of Prof. Dr. Carlos Labate (Technical Advisor) ESALQ,USP. The union of a visionary and entrepreneur with a deep technical knowledge, created a company with a strong focus on innovation and value creation for agribusiness.

They are made up of values that I found very relevant to our search for better solutions, and I admire a company where values are aligned with the purpose:

- Cultivate relationships based on equality and empathy, and put people first: the Team and the Clients.
- Engagement with purpose, results come from actions
- Transparency and Trust with customers, suppliers and employees
- Restless, getting better every day is what moves them.

These four values are essential for anyone looking to break paradigms and offer a more sustainable alternative for Brazilian agriculture and this caught my attention. Another positive point was the composition of its portfolio, as it has products for biological control, for inoculating crops and a line called Equilibrium, which is focused on offering nutrition, protection and balance for crops.

 The Equilibrum Line concept is very much in line with what we are looking for in offering the plant conditions so that it can be better able and stronger to resist bad weather.

A strong research and development team, open to collaboration, in addition to being present in a large part of the Brazilian territory and with important clients such as Produtecnica and Agrex, are another highlight as access to the Brazilian market is difficult, being a very concentrated market. and already occupied by large companies that are also looking to enter this segment.

Located in Piracicaba, in the heart of the Brazilian Agtechs and Agtech Garage, Genica has an open environment conducive to innovation such as:

- Research institutions recognized worldwide for their structures and researchers such as Esalq/USP, Unicamp, IAC and Embrapa
- Presence of investors specialized in the development of AgTechs;
- Synergy in the development of solutions between companies that belong to AgTechValley.

The union between this rich environment of Agtechs with the open mind of these visionaries and researchers who seek to undertake is a fertile ground for innovation and the search for disruptive solutions. Genica comes out ahead for having this spirit and for being at the heart of innovation in Brazilian agribusiness.