Finaves V, IESE’s venture capital fund, has taken part in a €1 million financing round for Agroptima, an agtech startup that provides farm management software to help farmers gather and manage data related to their crops.
The Barcelona-based company was founded in 2014 by Emilia Vila, its CEO, and Ferran Gascon, its chief technology officer, and it now operates in Spain and France.
Discovering that many small and medium-sized farms still keep their records on paper, Agroptima created software that allows farmers to input daily crop information onto an app on their cellphones, storing the data in the cloud. The software has the potential to make farms more efficient, and also gives them more precise, easy-to-access information to comply with increasingly strict regulations in areas such as fertilizer use.
Finaves contributed €200,000 to the financing round, which was led by Spanish venture capital firm Athos Capital. A handful of Spain-based business angels and family offices also took part.
Agroptima is also taking part in the 2020 edition of WeGrow, a mentoring program at IESE that matches startups with experienced mentors. Over the course of a year, the entrepreneurs meet regularly with their mentors, to set strategies in areas such as international expansion and scaling up operations.