Grão Direto promotes new round of investment and reinforces its leadership in the digitalization of agricultural businesses in Latin America

Grão Direto, the largest digital grain trading platform in Latin America, will now have Amaggi, ADM, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) as new investors, joining Bayer, Lanx, Grupo Rendimento, Barn, among others funds and individual investors, such as large international executives and rural producers. The four new partners will participate in the third round of investment promoted by Grão Direto, which will add more than R＄40 million to the startup and will allow it to accelerate the digitalization of agricultural commodities negotiations, providing the platform with a real leap in terms of volume, revenue, reach , liquidity, new customers and scale throughout the national territory and, potentially, also in other countries. The operation announced today was submitted for analysis by the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE).

The platform, which will continue to operate independently, has already registered more than 190 downloads of its application and with largely positive reviews, which is a differentiator in the agribusiness sector. This recognition places Grão Direto on the same level as companies in other sectors, recognized for their digital transformation and excellent customer experience. All of this indicates the great reach and engagement of rural producers in adhering to digital processes. “Innovation is part of the Brazilian farmer’s DNA. The same digital revolution already promoted 'inside the gate,' we are also doing it outside the gate!”, highlights Alexandre Borges, CEO of Grão Direto.

In 2021, there were more than 200 thousand purchase and sale offers made available through the platform. The company has already reached one million tons in terms of digitally connected businesses, serving different audiences: from small farmers to large producer groups, in sales processes; and small farmers to large international trading companies, including cooperatives, feed factories, resellers, brokers and all other agricultural profiles, in purchase transactions. In the last two years, the platform's customers in more than 1.100 different cities registered digitally connected businesses and Grão Direto's revenue grew 15 times.

Two of the new partners, ADM and LDC, already use Grão Direto's services and have seen in practice the positive impacts of digitalization on business. Amaggi and Cargill, in addition to investors, will also start using Grão Direto's solutions, joining the hundreds of grain-buying companies that are already customers of the platform and being able to negotiate with the thousands of farmers in several states who access the marketplace daily. “Technology allows the democratization of innovations. Today, with Grão Direto, a small buyer can use the same platform that the largest agribusiness companies in the world use, both providing a broad digital relationship on another level with farmers, regardless of their size”, adds Borges.

The diverse investor group - combining various sectors and profiles; Grão Direto's partnerships - such as the unprecedented direct connection agreement with the Chicago Stock Exchange (CME Group); the breadth of its solutions throughout a 100% digital negotiation process; and, finally, the results and volumes already achieved by the platform place Grão Direto as the most promising digital grain marketplace in the world.

This third round of investment consolidates the company's vision of building a secure digital ecosystem around agricultural commodity trading and expanding further. Grão Direto, which already had strategic investors in its previous rounds, is moving in this direction with the entry of these four new companies and the objective is to continue growing. “Just as stock exchanges around the world emerged from the collaboration of various market operators, we want to continue bringing in new strategic investors, be they buyers, distributors, cooperatives, industry and, obviously, farmers”, explains Alexandre. “Agriculture is very diverse and we want to replicate this diversity here, reinforcing our neutrality, independence and innovation in favor of modern agriculture in Brazil and the world”, highlights the CEO.

The company is already planning new rounds of investment in the next 18 months and projects a potential IPO within the next 5 years, allowing the platform's users and customers to become partners throughout this process. “Our users are our greatest ambassadors, we are already studying ways to make it possible, in the future, for them to also have their little piece, or their 'little grain', in this immense crop of opportunities”, explains Alexandre.

The new contribution will accelerate this path. The planned investments will include even greater growth of its team (which has already quintupled in size in 2021, going from 15 to 75 professionals), presence throughout Brazil, expansion of the product portfolio, technological development to offer even more complete trading services - - including financial products, in addition to expanding data and market intelligence services.

ESG

Sustainability is also a priority for Grão Direto and the expectation is that the new partners and the startup will collaborate to further promote initiatives on the topic.

Recently, Grão Direto began making available on its platform the “Seal of More Sustainable Practices”, developed in collaboration with Bayer's global sustainability team and which indicates on the platform which farmers are using agronomic practices that are more beneficial to the environment. In addition to seal, other ESG-related data, organized from different sources — such as government bodies and monitoring and compliance companies — are used to check, for example, about entries on a list of slave labor and compliance with other social and environmental guidelines.

“The digitalization of the commercialization of agricultural commodities will contribute enormously to sustainability actions, as it will allow for better traceability, automation and much more collaboration between different links in the chain around ESG practices. The future of agriculture is digital and sustainable and Brazil can be a protagonist in this transformation of the sector! At Grão Direto, we want to be a great facilitator of this movement”, concludes Alexandre Borges.