Skip to main content
Montevideo, February 13, 2023. The uruguayan company, specialized in the assessment and management of frost risk in high-value crops, will focus on increasing its turnover, R&D efforts, digitizing its products and consolidating its operations in Europe, USA, Australia, Mexico and the rest of Latin America.
The investment was led by The Yield Lab Latam with the participation of the Spanish agribusiness investment group Label Investments and a uruguayan angel investor.
The Climate Box, a leading company in frost risk assessment for agricultural investment funds, producers and farm managers, is preparing to increase its turnover, generate new R&D, digitalize its main products, expand its professional team and consolidate its presence in Europe, USA, Australia, Mexico and Latin America. Its founders are the uruguayans Gabriel Usera, Rafael Terra and Pedro Mastrángelo.
Pedro Mastrángelo, CEO of The Climate Box, commented on the investment round that “we are very happy to close this round with the objective of continuing to offer a unique product in the world through cutting-edge R&D, achieve more scalability with increasingly digital services, consolidate our presence in current markets and open new markets”.
The Climate Box is a start-up born in 2019 and has more than 25 years of accumulated experience among its founders. It has analyzed more than 60,000 hectares in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, USA, Mexico, Australia and Uruguay.
Through a unique technology based on numerical modeling of cold air flows, the company offers actionable products for agricultural producers such as microclimatic maps and microclimate frost risk assessment, as well as to generate site selection recommendations and passive and active frost control measures.
The evaluation of microclimatic conditions – and particularly frost risk – for the development of new orchards & vineyards is a critical factor in the face of the challenge posed by climate change, with more extreme weather events and the migration of production zones to higher latitudes to avoid the negative impacts of higher temperatures and water stress. Likewise, for existing orchards & vineyards, the analysis of microclimatic conditions is essential to define specific active and passive measures to mitigate frost damage.
The Climate Box offers an effective and actionable solution for both cases, being a key tool for Land Acquisition projects and for management of existing orchards and vineyards.
Camila Petignat, partner of The Yield Lab Latam commented that “we are very excited with the realization of this investment, it is an opportunity that we have been building together with the founding team since we met them two years ago.
They have a unique and expert knowledge of very high value in the market, that integrated with precision agriculture platforms it can take another scale. In addition, we envision that a new business model could be developed based on frost risk insights that in the context of the climate crisis could feed risk models in the agricultural insurance industry becoming an insure-tech player”.
Alexandre Pierron Darbonne, CEO and Founder of Label Investments commented: “The Climate Box has a unique technology in the world that allows us to control one of the biggest uncertainties when developing permanent crop development projects: the risk of frost. At Label, we use The Climate Box services generically for all our nut and tropical fruit agricultural projects. We are convinced that The Climate Box has the potential to become the reference player in the sector of climate risk assessment linked to climate change by offering recurrent services of analysis and definition of preventive measures”.
About The Climate Box
With +60,000 ha analyzed in Europe, USA, Mexico, Uruguay and Australia, The Climate Box is a leading company in frost risk assessment for high value crops. Its current product is used by Ag investment funds, producers and farm managers.
More info: www.theclimatebox.com
About The Yield Lab Latam
The Yield Lab Latam is an entrepreneurial capital firm that invests in Agrifood tech companies with operations in Sao Paulo – Brazil, Buenos Aires – Argentina, Rancagua – Chile and Mexico City. Since 2018, when the first acceleration program was launched, The Yield Lab Latam has invested in 19 companies in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Uruguay and Mexico, covering a wide range of verticals ranging from Agbiotech, sensors and connectivity to markets, smart logistics, food tech and fintech for agribusiness. It is also part of The Yield Lab, a global network of investment funds with the mission to help entrepreneurs sustainably revolutionize agri-food systems, which has deployed +US$100M in investments, in +70 companies worldwide.
More info: https://theyieldlablatam.com/
About Label Investments
Label Investments is the investment vehicle created by Alexandre Darbonne, the former president of Planasa. Launched at the end of 2018, Label Investments is dedicated to investing in technology and major consumer trends in the agrifood sector with a vocational commitment to sustainability. Among others, Label Investments holds stakes in Planasa, a world reference in berry genetics, WallBox the global leader in smart chargers for electric vehicles or TreeMond, a project to plant 10,000 has of nuts in Iberia.
For more information:
www.labelinvestments.com
