Latin America is a region that is abundant in land and water resources, making it the world’s largest barn, contributing to 13% of the global production value of fish and agricultural products according to FAO. When it comes to AgriFoodTech innovation, although it may not be as visible as leading global ecosystems like the US, Israel, or Singapore, the Latin America AgriFoodtech scene is growing fast and quickly catching up.

The region has seen a surge of innovation and investment in technologies such as precision agriculture, alternative proteins, vertical farming, and food traceability, among others. These technologies have the potential to transform the way we produce, distribute, and consume food, making it more sustainable, efficient, and healthy. 

AgriFoodTech in LATAM – 2023 Ecosystem Report

To shed some light on this nascent ecosystem, we decided to explore and highlight the potential of the region to become a global FoodTech Hub, and delved deeper by releasing our ‘AgriFoodTech LATAM 2023 Ecosystem Report’.

According to our FoodTech Data Navigator database, AgriFoodTech startups and scale-ups in Latin America received €2.6B investments in 2022, and the ecosystem counts over 600 active players.

This report is packed with crucial metrics, expert insights and interviews with industry leaders to provide a comprehensive understanding of the challenges facing the sector. If you’re interested in learning more about the state of the AgriFoodTech industry in LATAM, make sure to download the report below!

Download the full report here

 

Webinar recap: innovations driving the AgriFoodTech revolution in LATAM

To celebrate the release of the report, on April 5th, we hosted a webinar where we were joined by some of the brightest minds in the LATAM AgriFoodTech industry, to share insights on latest trends, challenges, and opportunities for the sector.

We had the pleasure to have Gaspard Hambuckers, COO at Kitchenita, a startup that creates data-driven food concepts for delivery partnering with leading F&Bs and renowned chefs across the region; Juan Pablo Orlov, Chief of Staff at Michroma, a biotech platform producing natural ingredients in a sustainable, scalable, and cost-effective way; Martin Salinas, Co-founder & Chief of Technlogy at Moolec Science, a science-based food ingredient company producing real animal proteins in plants through a disruptive technology in the alternative protein landscape; Mario Bustamante Bernucci, CEO at Instacrops Inc (YC S21), a full stack platform that integrates a set of technologies for giving real-time recommendations for farmers using ML and AI, and Anahi Sosa, Co-founder & CPO at Perfekto (YC S21), a subscription box with imperfect food from farm to table so consumers save time and money while reducing food waste. 

Each of our panelists shared their journey in the Agrifoodtech industry, how they started their companies, and the challenges they faced along the way. 

Anahi from Perfekto pointed out that working in the FoodTech industry involves both the physical and digital world, which makes it a complex space to operate in, merging two worlds to create one:

“In the FoodTech industry, we operate from the physical and digital world, which makes it a little bit more challenging, and as a layer of complexity.”

Mario, from Instacrops, added and emphasized that being able to fit products in multiple markets across the LATAM region, taking into account the differences in culture, territories, technology, and financial issues is key in order to succeed:

“In Latam, you have to know that you have to fit your product in many different markets, not only one big city, because it’s not enough. The technology is there, but there are a lot of connection problems. It’s not so advanced in all of the countries, culture and technical, financial issues.”

You can watch the full replay here.

More generally speaking , talking about fundraising, Martin, from Moolec, emphasized the importance of creativity and highlighted the dynamic nature of the industry:

“It’s time to be creative, to think out of the box, to search the next funding round. It’s still the era of mergers and acquisitions.” 

To add on this, Juan from Michroma highlighted the importance of finding the right investors to succeed in the FoodTech industry.

“It’s always a challenge to raise a funding round, the macroeconomic situation, the decrease of capital income into FoodTech startups don’t help that much. At our last funding round, we raised funds from all over the world – Europe, Asia, North and South America. There are really world-class investors in Latam that add a lot of value, having the knowledge about the area and making connections with top-level investors.” 

From there, Gaspar from Kitchenita elaborated on the challenges of working with corporates:

‘’It’s extremely difficult to work with big corporations. It’s a main challenge for startups because we don’t have the same timeline. We take decisions 10x times faster than them, but we do need them in some aspects, to grow and reach new horizons.” 

 

Thank you to the FoodTech community!

Thank you to our speakers and attendees for their valuable contributions. The AgriFoodTech industry in Latin America is poised for growth and impact, and we look forward to seeing the innovative solutions that will emerge in the years to come

Want to check out the report? Just click HERE. And if you missed the webinar, no worries – you can watch the replay by clicking HERE.

Do you want to learn more about the FoodTech sector? Access our Food Data Navigator HERE to discover all the companies mentioned in this article and gather trends and insights, or get in touch HERE for a tailored consultancy.