February 7, 2020

By Lynda Kiernan

Agrofy has not held the record for the largest agtech funding round in Latin America for long. Brazilian agricultural SaaS leader Solinftec announced it has closed on a $40 million Series B led by Unbox Capital, the $100 million investment arm of the media mogul Trajano family.

This is the fifth investment in Brazil for Unbox Capital since its founding in November 2018. 

The round also included a $20 million agricultural asset-backed debt led by Itaú BBA and Gaia Securitizations, which was backed by undisclosed family offices and hedge funds.

Founded in São Paulo in 2007 by a team of seven engineers led by Britaldo Hernandez, Solinftec today has headquarters in Araçatuba along with six offices across the country of Brazil, and a U.S. headquarters established in West Lafayette, Indiana, in November 2018 where the company established operations at the Purdue Research Park in Tippecanoe County, with expectations for the creation of up to 334 new jobs by 2022. 

“The U.S. Midwest is core to our strategy; we recognize its importance in the global food and its ag ecosystem. We are humbled and thrilled to launch our U.S. headquarters out of the state of Indiana,” said Renato Hersz, strategy and corporate development director for Solinftec, in November 2018.

The company’s business is comprised of layers of hardware, telecommunications, and software common across different crops. Building upon this layer, Solinftec has developed a range of broad-reaching algorithmic solutions which address challenges specific to a range of crops including sugarcane, corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, coffee, grapes, and oranges.

With operations in 11 countries, and used by global giants, including international companies such as Amaggi, COFCO, and Terra Santa, Solinftec’s technology platform processes granular sensor-gathered data from more than 20 million acres and more than 35,000 agricultural machines and 120,000 daily users.

Since 2018 the company has led the development of artificial intelligence, leading to the launch of ALICE, a first-of-its-kind AI platform designed to work with farmers to integrate and process data from farm machinery, people, climate, and relevant external inputs to calculate the user’s needs to meet their objectives.

“Solinftec is leading the digital transformation of agribusiness through process monitoring and data analysis solutions for real-time decision making. It is a huge market, practically untouched by technology ,” said Patricia Moraes, founding partner, Unbox Capital.

The solutions developed by Solinftec have the potential to generate savings that can exceed 30 percent, while also reducing fuel consumption by as much as 25 percent, increasing the efficiency of agricultural machinery by up to 50 percent, and reducing the use of pesticides by as much as 15 percent.

“Solinftec is facing the world’s food problem, continually exploring new technological frontiers that allow it to increase food production with fewer resources. With technology, we are changing the way food is produced,” said Britaldo Hernandez, founder and CTO of Solinftec.

This round is also being hailed as the largest agtech funding event in Latin America, breaking a record that was set only weeks ago by Agrofy, which raised a $23 million Series B led by SP Ventures, and included Fall Line Capital, and Acre Capital. 

The capital raised through this Series B will be used by Solinftec to support its efforts to expand into new crops and geographies, and to develop new products.

“The round led by Unbox Capital will help us take our solutions to a wider audience and accelerate product development and geographic expansion,” noted  Rodrigo Iafelice dos Santos, CEO of Solinftec.

“The whole world talks about sustainable agriculture and Solinftec makes it possible in a concrete, real and practical way that rural producers are more sustainable using less inputs, reducing costs and increasing productivity, in real time, as the inputs are applied in the best conditions. Without this information, up to 70 percent of the inputs are applied in the worst conditions, generating waste and loss of up to 100 percent of what is applied. So, we couldn’t be more excited about the future.”

– Lynda Kiernan is Editor with GAI Media and daily contributor to the GAI News and Agtech Intel platforms. If you would like to submit a contribution for consideration, please contact Ms. Kiernan at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.