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João was the unexpected entrepreneur. His family background in the coffee industry afforded him an opportunity to align his knowledge of agriculture and his passion for technology. The result was a blockchain-based business that established a mechanism for micro-farmers to distribute their coffee harvest efficiently into the international market, removing layers of traditional middlemen. With the cash proceeds from that business, João set-up a venture-capital fund targeting start-up opportunities in the farm-technology sector, especially ones relevant to the developing world.
On the Fast Track
João knew that he was not an accountant or lawyer so he brought into his fledgling venture-capital firm partners who were well-attuned to those fields. His personal network helped him to identify these like-minded professionals. His forte had always been his ability to validate a business strategy by working with “authentic” businessmen. He wanted to ensure that his commercial approach fully aligned—and stayed aligned—with deals that would help small-to-medium-sized farmers compete with agricultural giants.
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Leslie Berlin, Troublemakers
In the venture-capital business, word-of-mouth travels quickly. It did not take long before João and his colleagues were flooded with emails and phone calls from entrepreneurs asking for capital investment. Some deals were easy to discount. They were not interested in medical technology or transport innovation. There certainly were worthwhile opportunities in those fields, but their in-house expertise aligned singularly with agriculture. Nor were they interested in late-stage deals, primarily because the funding rounds were too large and those series were often built on the back of questionable valuations.
Ties to Cranganore
Tapping into veins of venture capital can be a grand exercise in networking. We were fortunate in this instance because a known relationship of ours in the real-estate industry knew João’s father through an ranchland deal. Following up on the suggestion that we meet João on one of his personal trips to Miami, our ties became buoyant, in part because of our at-hand association with Florida’s agriculture sector. The front-line due diligence we offered João and his colleagues by mentoring deals led them to make two different Series A commitments in farm-technology startups through our offices.
Consulting Services
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