Elevator Ventures

Elevator Ventures is a corporate venture capital organization Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) headquartered in Vienna. Its main area of ​ ​ activity is early investment and increased investment in fintech and related technologies in Central and Eastern Europe. Acting as a leading partner in the development of financial technologies in Central and Eastern Europe, Elevator Ventures uses the experience, network and corporate strength of the RBI Group to help promising expansions in this dynamic region and beyond.

History

2021: Investing in Agro.Club

July 7, 2021 Raiffeisen Bank announced TAdviser that Elevator Ventures, together with other international investors, took part in investment round A, during which Russian startup Agro.Club it received 5 million for United States dollars further development in the global business arena. More. here

2020: Investing $1.5 million in Agro.Club with Speedinvest

June 3, 2020 Raiffeisen Bank announced TAdviser that Elevator Ventures, a corporate venture capital company, RBI together with the company Speedinvest invested in a Russian startup Agro.Club digital agricultural ecosystem, which, following Russia its launch North America in and plans to expand further in the markets. the European The volume of investments amounted to a total of 1.5 million. United States dollars

Raiffeisen Bank invested $1.5 million in a grain marketplace in Russia

Agro.Club offers a mobile application and web service with a set of tools that unite all participants in the agricultural market: agricultural producers, exporters and processors of grain and suppliers of products, including large international corporations and their distribution networks. The ecosystem includes a marketplace for crops, seeds, agrochemistry and agricultural technology, market analytics, as well as a section for open communication among farmers throughout the country.

We were impressed by the deep knowledge of the industry of Agro.Club. We believe this fits very well into our long history of agricultural financing in the RBI. Elevator Ventures is ready to support the growth of Agro.Club in the home market and abroad, said Thomas Muchar, managing director of Elevator Ventures.

As the first country, Agro.Club chose precisely, which has Russia become a key player in the global food market in recent years. Moreover, the country's agricultural industry continues to actively develop and as of June 2020 has a capacity of more than $20 billion. USA

At Speedinvest, we consider agriculture as one of the most attractive markets for the introduction of financial services. Since Russia is a large agricultural market, and Yegor Kirin is the inspiring founder of the company, we have been enthusiastic about this opportunity from the first day. We have built strong relationships with the Agro.Club team over the past 9 months and are happy to join forces to make agriculture fair, transparent and sustainable, said Enrique Martinez-Hausmann, partner at Speedinvest.

The Agro.Club mobile app empowers farmers to increase profits by giving them direct access to all major market players, while accompanying all transactions with a guarantee of payment and quality of goods, as well as built logistics.

In the first 18 months since the launch of Agro.Club in Russia, almost 20% of all agricultural producers installed the application and became participants in the ecosystem. Moreover, most of the main exporters and processors, such as Cargill, Agromarket, or EFCO, have already begun to use Agro.Club services to effectively purchase crops directly from farmers without unnecessary intermediaries and costs. Every month, more than 2 million tons of grain are put up for sale by farms from all over the country, and real transactions are carried out for hundreds of millions of rubles with an increase of more than 50% from month to month.

The question of trust between the producer and, for example, the buyer of grain is often difficult. Will the farmer deliver the goods on time and in proper quality? Will the buyer pay for the grain in full? Agro.Club in this case is the organizer of the transaction and guarantor for both parties, simplifying the payment process, guaranteeing quality and organizing logistics, says Agro.Club founder and CEO Yegor Kirin.

The resources obtained will be used for further scaling in international markets. In the first quarter of 2020, the company launched a business in North America, where industry veterans such as Neil Arbukl and Erin Romeo, formerly heads of Bayer, Monsanto, United Grain Growers in the region, have already joined the Agro.Club team.

Elevator Ventures works closely with the Elevator Lab accelerator, which is a startup accelerator program in Eastern Europe. The RBI Group invests in successful participants in the acceleration program and further develops strategic partnerships with portfolio companies. Since 2016, Raiffeisen Bank in Russia has had its own innovation program - a framework for working with young companies that offer little-proven technologies, services or solutions. The program is also an effective tool for Russian startups to present interesting solutions for Elevator Ventures in a favorable light.

See also

• Venture Capital Investment
• Venture capital investment in Russia's IT sector
• Venture capital investments in Russia
• Corporate venture in the IT industry of Russia