Contxto – It’s time to turn our eyes back to Brazil (again) because agtech Horus Aeronaves has raised an investment worth R$2 million (~US$358,500). This round was led by EqSeed which is interestingly enough an online crowdfunding platform.
Horus Aeronaves is, as previously mentioned, an agtech that processes the images and data provided by their drones to convert them into information.
Afterwards, their software turns that data into informatión, allowing customers to improve productivity and reduce costs of running and wastefulness on their fields.
Fabricio Hertz, CEO & co-Founder of Horus Aeronaves, mentioned they intend to focus this recent investment on passing the thousand certified drone operator mark in their system.
According to Hertz’s projections “this course of action should allow sales to reach over R$12 million.”
Horus has been here before
This is the second time this agtech has raised venture capital. The first was back in October 2018 when they closed R$2 million with the lead investor being EqSeed. Wait… deja vù, right?
I feel we are developing the bad habit of normalizing seed rounds over millions of dollars. However, the fact that we’ve been seeing more than a couple of rounds being raised on a crowdfunding platform, shows another facet of the maturing of the Brasilian ecosystem.
“We analyzed some financing alternatives and capital crowdfunding seemed to us to be a very agile and legally safe way to raise money; both for the investor and for the company seeking to obtain funds,” said Fabrício Hertz, co-Founder and CEO at Horus Aeronaves back in 2018.
“The speed and profile of investors were some of the factors that surprised us the most. Undoubtedly, equity crowdfunding is a real option to attract startups from different segments, including agrotechnology, as well as for startups at all stages of their development.”
That sounds about right. After all, a seed round is vital fuel for the entrepreneurs shaping the future. If an investment vehicle such as crowdfunding is bringing us closer to innovation in the region, I say, welcome and keep it coming.
Hertz concluded this time around:
“We had an excellent previous experience and, given the strong growth of our business, we needed to be quick on our feet. So we already had a more streamlined process without bureaucracy through the EqSeed profile. But in fact, accessing capital in a week was surprising and shows that this model proposed by EqSeed is more than consolidated.”
-CM
