Private Capital Investments in Agrifood-Tech Startups in South America, 2007-2022

This paper documents rapid growth in private investment in agrifood-tech startups in South America. Over the 15 year period 2007-22, nearly US$10 billion flowed into 547 startups via more than 1100 business deals. The real annualized growth rate of 52% in such investment has gone largely unnoticed. The South American agrifood-tech ecosystem is heavily concentrated in Brazil and Argentina, which together account for 75% of the population of startups. Likewise, the ten largest deals over this period account for 48 percent of all investments; the median investment in South American agrifood tech is modest, roughly US$100,000. Pre-farm gate technologies captured over 42% of the deal flow but only 15% of the total capital invested. By contrast, investments at the consumer-facing end of the agrifood value chain, into on-demand delivery startups, represent 51% of all investments in the region but only 8% of the deal flow. Just 46% of firms raised two or more funding rounds over the 15-year period. Multivariate regression models show that country-year-level macroeconomic, financial and agricultural indicators fail to explain much variation in private capital investments in South American agrifood tech. Drawing on key informant interviews, we identify some of the main barriers to and accelerators of adoption and uptake at scale of agrifood technologies in South America.