Agtech receives funding and expects to move more than R$1 billion in credit operations in the 2018 crop year
September 25, 2018

Source: Startupi

25/09/2018

With the proposal of using technology to revolutionize the management of receivables for agribusinesses, agricultural input distributors, cooperatives, and trading companies, the startup GIRA (Integrated Management of Agribusiness Receivables) has just received an investment from the Venture Brasil Central fund, managed by Cedro Capital.

With the investment, the startup reaches R$6 million in funding to expand its capillarity in the country and in Latin America. After running 2017 in a pilot stage, moving R$85 million in credit operations, the expectation for the new season with the new version of the platform is to reach a volume of over R$1 billion.

“We provide more security for credit agents and lower costs for producers by linking operations to the guarantee of agricultural production, within a standard of legal and agronomic knowledge that allows for reliability of risk indicators,” says Gianpaolo Zambiazi, CEO of GIRA.

One of the main innovations of the startup from Minas Gerais is the use of a new type of CPR – Rural Product Bond, which already brings agronomic indicators, allowing a great systemic gain in the structuring of credit operations, benefiting producers and credit granters. The idea is to mitigate the investment risk and provide more versatility for the producer to make his financing operations.

According to Alessandro Machado, a partner at Cedro Capital, GIRA’s innovative solution meets a latent demand in the market, which is the commitment to productivity. “We believe that the use of technology and skilled labor in risk mitigation and assertive definition of performance indicators will contribute greatly for the agribusiness sector to reach even higher levels of results throughout its production chain.

Currently, GIRA already has more than 1100 registrations of agronomists, agricultural technicians and lawyers able to collect and analyze information about areas throughout the country that have a potential for productivity, in addition to raising risk indicators. “What we basically do is replicate the UBER model for agribusiness. Our system locates registered agronomists or lawyers in a given area. The chosen surveyor goes to the site, makes the evidence of the situation of the crop, following a protocol of data collection and gives his opinion. Based on this evidence, we are able to classify the risk and communicate the factual situation to the creditor, allowing him to make a decision based on real and timely information. The surveyor, in turn, earns points that are converted into credits”, explains Gianpaolo.

New version of the platform

After running 2017 in pilot stage, GIRA has just launched its 1.5 platform for this year’s crop. Besides being more intuitive, the new version brings a management method based on blockchain, allowing the integration of all internal processes for approving operations. The system also adopts a new information management system with new dash board options and integration with other systems through its APIs.