Contxto – São Paulo’s agrotech, Solinftec raised an investment for US$40 million according to an announcement made this week. Unbox Capital led the round.
The startup from Brazil will use these funds to further develop its artificial intelligence (AI) platform. Likewise, the agtech will use the equity to increase its number of users, as well as expand operations.
Related article: German chemical producer BASF injects US$4 million into Brazilian agrotech fund
Agrotech meets artificial intelligence
Founded in 2007, Solinftec provides tech to agriculture farmers in 11 countries. For such large operations, it relies on around 500 employees. Nearly half of its staff (200) is centered on tech and product development.
The startup’s booming solution is ALICE. This platform reads data fed from farms in real-time to then give growers useful insights.
For example, it helps sugarcane planters find the ideal number of machines and labor input to harvest their crops. It can also connect with nearby weather stations and use their forecasts to advise on when to spray pesticides.
In addition, ALICE uses historical data to track a crop’s evolution so growers know when to water and when to leave plants be. Although with encroaching climate change, they’ll need some pretty sophisticated AI to predict the unpredictable.
Related article: 12 Brazilian startups revolutionizing the agrotech industry
Aggressive expansion plans
Besides its native Brazil, the startup helps farmers in 10 countries. Among which are Argentina, Canada, the United States, and Colombia. But given commentary from investment’s lead investor, a big goal for the future is increasing the startup’s international presence.
“We want to help Solinftec expand, showing its innovative technology to the whole world,” said Patricia Moraes, a partner from Unbox Capital.
Correspondingly, within the next two years, the agtech hopes to expand into Europe and Asia, including China.
For the agrotech, the latter will prove to be an interesting market. This is so considering it’s the world’s largest producer, importer, and (unsurprisingly) consumer of food.
Related articles: Tech and startups in Brazil!
-ML
