“There is no investment category in Latin America where you can scale environmental and social impact like agriculture. ”
— Francisco Jardim
In this episode, I talk with Francisco “Chico” Jardim, General Partner at SP Ventures, about how agrifood and climate-focused AgTech emerged as some of the most durable investment opportunities in Latin America.
Chico’s story starts well before SP Ventures. He grew up across three continents, moving with his father’s diplomatic postings through the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Brazil. Living inside different political systems and cultures forced constant adaptation. It also gave him firsthand exposure to how different political systems and public policies shape economic outcomes and how fragile it can be when institutions fail.
That background shaped how he thinks about capital. In Chico’s view, money only matters when it helps companies build capabilities they would struggle to build on their own.
When he returned to Brazil after university, the country was still early in its economic stabilization. Democracy was recent. Hyperinflation was a fresh memory. Privatization and market reforms were still working their way through the system.
Working at Banco Santos showed him how quickly weak governance can destroy a financial institution. Despite strong reported results, the bank hid losses and lacked proper controls, triggering a loss of confidence and a Central Bank intervention that led to its collapse.
That experience pulled him toward an early BNDES initiative designed to create a venture capital ecosystem around university research. The idea was to move scientific work out of academia and into real companies that could scale.
In simple terms, Brazil had strong scientists and engineers, but very few pathways to turn their ideas into real businesses. This program was meant to connect professors, students, and entrepreneurs with capital so research could actually reach the market and create jobs.
SP Ventures emerged in 2007 through that program, at a time when Brazilian venture capital barely existed and agriculture was viewed as a marginal, capped sector.
As Chico spent time inside universities and early startups, one pattern kept repeating: Tropical agriculture operates under constant biological pressure, with pests, diseases, and soil stress active year-round and multiple harvests adding operational complexity.
Those conditions make copy-and-paste technologies ineffective and push solutions toward local science, local founders, and deep, field-level collaboration. That realization gradually shaped SP Ventures into a specialist platform focused on Latin American AgTech.
Today, SP Ventures is widely regarded as one of the region’s leading agrifood venture capital firms. With more than 16 years of experience, over $150 million in assets under management, and investments across multiple funds in Latin America, the firm has proven its ability to operate through repeated economic and market downturns.
SP Ventures invests across biologics, agricultural financial services, digital decision tools, farmer education, and the infrastructure that connects them.
What Chico emphasizes next is that agriculture rewards a very different kind of investor mindset. Innovation moves slower, adoption happens in cycles, and results compound over years, not quarters. That pace filters out fast money and favors teams willing to stay close to farmers long enough to earn trust.
He also breaks down why Latin American agriculture keeps performing when other parts of the economy stall. Food demand is inelastic, revenues are dollar-denominated, and production is diversified across crops, regions, and export markets. That combination makes agriculture one of the few sectors that can grow through recessions, political shifts, and global shocks.
But the biggest risk isn’t technology. It’s people.
Chico explains how talent is structurally leaving rural areas (creating what he calls a ‘growing social abyss’), and why losing skilled farmers and operators is a bigger threat than most investors realize. That’s why SP Ventures backs education platforms and tools that reconnect the next generation to farming through technology, data, and modern business skills.
This conversation is about learning how to think long-term in a world obsessed with speed. Chico doesn’t offer shortcuts, but a realistic path for building systems that hold up under pressure, with examples from the SP Ventures portfolio that prove patient capital, deep specialization, and real-world adoption outperform fast growth when conditions get hard.
Listen in.
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Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SHOW NOTES:
[00:00] Introduction
[03:39] Growing up across three continents and early exposure to emerging markets
[09:07] How international schools shaped worldview and adaptability
[12:15] Starting a career in Brazilian banking
[15:12] Moving into hedge funds and market inefficiencies
[17:05] Why traditional finance felt like the dark side
[21:27] Leaving finance for agriculture and the real economy
[28:59] Founding SP Ventures in a nonexistent VC market
[39:39] The risky bet of a single-LP first fund
[50:57] Why agriculture innovation must be local in Brazil
[01:04:53] What SP Ventures looks like today as an AgTech venture capital firm
[01:11:54] Why Latin American AgTech is a generational opportunity
[01:20:10] Investment strategy across agrifood, AgTech, and climate tech
[01:25:27] Why farmers struggle to access capital in Latin America
[01:28:18] Logistics, marketplaces, and infrastructure bottlenecks
[01:34:01] Lessons learned from investing in carbon markets
[01:43:54] ESG integration and measuring real impact in AgTech
[01:49:21] What it takes to scale Latin American AgTech
[01:54:19] Rapid fire questions
Additional Resources:
MORE QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEWS:
“We will never sacrifice impact for financial returns, but we will also never sacrifice financial returns for impact. We understand that there’s a duality, that there is no trade off. ”
— Francisco Jardim
“More important than sustainable agriculture is guaranteeing food security. If you sacrifice productivity, you risk jeopardizing global food security. That’s the uncomfortable truth. ”
— Francisco Jardim
