Elevator Ventures and Speedinvest invest in Agro.Club

Raiffeisen Bank International’s corporate venture capital entity, Elevator Ventures, joins Speedinvest in a seed funding round for AgTech startup Agro.Club, currently operating in Russia and North America with plans to further expand in Europe. 

Elevator Ventures Beteiligungs GmbH (“Elevator Ventures”), a 100 per cent subsidiary of Raiffeisen Bank International, and Speedinvest invest in a seed round of Аgro.Club, a digital agriculture ecosystem that connects farmers, grain companies, and agricultural input providers (including large multinationals and their retailers) into a single network (mobile app), which serves as an efficient marketplace, the source of valuable analytics, marketing and networking tool throughout the whole agricultural value chain. 

Following a successful launch in Russia, where almost 20 per cent of farmers have signed up in the first 18 months and millions of euros in deals are conducted on the platform each month, Agro.Club has initiated plans to expand into Europe and has already launched operations in North America. 

“We were impressed by the deep sector knowledge of the leadership team of Agro.Club. We see it as a great fit to our long history of agricultural financing within RBI. Elevator Ventures is ready to support Agro.Club’s growth in its initial markets and across border,” said Thomas Muchar Managing Director at Elevator Ventures. 

Farmers have historically been forced to be price/risk-takers working in a non- transparent market limited to their local partners. The Agro.Club mobile app empowers farmers by giving them access to multinational agricultural giants and independent retailers. This opens up new opportunities while saving farmers money. What’s more, farmers can sell their grain directly to large exporters and food companies, with Agro.Club offering platform support across the whole value chain, from seed to grain at the port. 

“Trust between farmers and a new buyer can often be a tricky issue,” said Agro.Club founder and CEO, Egor Kirin. “Will the farmer deliver on time? Will the grain buyer pay in full? So Agro.Club bridges the trust gap by facilitating all payments, guaranteeing the quality, and handling delivery.” 

“At Speedinvest, we see agriculture as one of the most attractive markets to embed financial services. As Russia is a great agricultural market and Egor an outstanding founder, we were enthusiastic about the opportunity from day one. We have built a solid relationship with the team for the last nine months and are excited about joining forces to make agriculture fair, transparent and sustainable,” said Enrique Martinez-Hausmann, Associate at Speedinvest. 

Agro.Club offers value to all main groups of the agricultural value chain: farmers, crop buyers and providers of the key inputs (seeds, crop protection products and fertilizers) regardless of their location and size. In the future, Agro.Club sees prospects for other customer groups as well, including logistics companies, financial institutions, agricultural innovation leaders, etc. The company has chosen Russia as its first market, with a fast-developing $20 billion agriculture industry that has become a key global player in recent years. 

“From the day Agro.Club was founded we’ve been loyal to our vision of building a holistic ecosystem for the full agriculture value chain and empowering it with the next generation financial solutions. Speedinvest and Elevator Ventures share our vision and provide not only capital, but also deep fintech expertise and network around the world. As importantly, we really like the team and the relationship we’ve established over the months,” said Egor Kirin. 

Agro.Club has taken the same approach of efficient, inclusive innovation with the launch of their digital ecosystem for North America. Industry veteran Neil Arbuckle has joined Agro.Club as the Managing Director for the region. Having spent more than 30 years as a senior business leader across the North America value chain, Arbuckle has been on the front lines of crop inputs, seeds, traits, agchem, distribution and operations. Drawing on his prior experience with Bayer, Monsanto and United Grain Growers, he immediately saw the value of the digital enterprise solution. 

Also joining the North America team as Campaign Strategist is Erin Romeo. Working in the industry for over 15 years as a senior marketing leader at Monsanto and Bayer, Romeo brings a keen sense of customer marketing strategies and tactics and a passion for launching new products. “Having been at the table with farmers, retailers and manufacturers, I know the Agro.Club platform is a digital solution that can solve for those challenges and strengthen those relationships”.