Despite funding gap, Brazil's agtech sector grows

Illustration: Dmitry Kovalchuk/Shutterstock and André Chiavassa/TBR

Brazil’s agricultural technology sector has matured significantly in recent years, though access to venture capital remains limited — despite the country’s heavy reliance on agribusiness to drive economic growth.

Put together by early-stage investment fund SP Ventures, consultancy Homo Ludens and the state-run agricultural research agency Embrapa, the latest Radar Agtech report identified 1,972 active agtech startups in Brazil in 2024 — spanning sectors such as product development, credit, production management, food processing and more. While the figure is virtually unchanged from the previous year, it marks a 25% increase since 2020.

“The growth in absolute numbers may be slower, but the companies are becoming more established,” said Luiz Ojima Sakuda, one of the study coordinators. “There’s still a lot of room for expansion.”

Indeed, the share of rural households with internet access jumped from 22% in 2015 to 74% in 2024, largely due to a digitalization boom during the pandemic. “Infrastructure was a missing piece,” Sakuda told The Brazilian Report. “Now there’s potential for wide-scale adoption.”