AMAZ ANNOUNCES FIVE NEW STARTUPS FOR ITS PORTFOLIO
Five businesses were selected by AMAZ Impact Accelerator to receive investment and be accelerated in 2023. The last stage of the selection process – the presentation of the pitches – took place in Manaus on November 30th, during the 2nd FIINSA (Forum de Investimentos de Impact and Sustainable Business in the Amazon).
The businesses that will become part of the accelerator's portfolio in 2023 are: Cumbaru, Ekilibre, Impacta Finance, Manawara and Mazô Maná. Four of them are headquartered in the Legal Amazon and one in São Paulo.
Following AMAZ’s portfolio diversification logic, those selected work in different areas, such as recovery of degraded pastures through agrosilvopastoral systems, management of sociobiodiversity products, manufacture of natural vegan cosmetics, functional foods and vegan sweets with Amazonian raw materials , decentralized finance and web 3.0 solutions for impactful businesses.
Businesses bring diversification to the accelerator's portfolio
In the 2022 Call, AMAZ sought to further diversify the portfolio, focusing on businesses that test innovative concepts.
“Businesses entered completely new areas for the ecosystem, such as Impacta Finance, for example, which must build and apply web 3.0 solutions that will serve other impact businesses even in our own portfolio. We also selected businesses already established in the region and with governance structures involving local leaders, always looking for ventures in which AMAZ can contribute knowledge and complementary resources, such as the development of the impact thesis, organizational structure, connections with local partners, suppliers, customers or other businesses in our portfolio”, analyzes Mariano Cenamo, CEO of AMAZ and new business director at Idesam.
Cenamo highlights the opportunity to present the pitches during the 2nd FIINSA as a bonus of this year's selection process, since during the event the businesses had intense contact with the entire ecosystem, interacting with investors, other businesses in the AMAZ portfolio, other accelerators and other actors.
For Rafael Moreira Ribeiro, investment analyst at AMAZ, this year's selection process was a little more demanding in the sense of seeking this diversity of business profiles:
“In terms of scale, business today has a smaller reach, but at the same time we have new market emergencies – we are talking about decentralized finance, recovery of pasture areas, sustainable livestock and, of course, food. These are very interesting and extremely important areas for the AMAZ focus and thesis. For the future, we imagine that this process of composing the accelerator's portfolio will continue to seek diversity and new market areas to explore, and we believe that these ventures have a high potential to boost Amazon socio-biodiversity in the coming years.”
Acceleration and investment in 2023
The five selected businesses will go through an acceleration journey that will last approximately six months, and which is formatted from the collective and individual needs of the group, programmed in co-creation between the AMAZ team and the entrepreneurs. They will also receive an initial investment of R$ 200 thousand, with the possibility of a new contribution at the end of the acceleration.
The approximate impact potential of the selected businesses, between five and ten years, includes more than 1 million hectares of preserved forest, development of more than 15 Amazonian value chains, 2,000 hectares of forests recovered, hundreds of community suppliers benefited and an increase in investment flow in the Amazon region at R$50 million.
Meet the selected ones:
cumbaru – located in Cuiabá (MT), works with the recovery of degraded pastures through the implementation of agrosilvopastoral systems and sustainable management of sociobiodiversity products. It focuses on three main chains: Baru, beef calves and milk production. It operates in partnership with small and medium-sized rural producers, providing access to resources and technical assistance for greater productive efficiency in degraded areas and reducing the pressure of deforestation.
Ekilibre Amazon – based in Santarém (PA), it is a vegan brand of natural cosmetics, with 10 years in the market, based on valuing the standing forest. Its products contain around 90-96% of forest inputs, sustainably harvested by communities in western Pará.
Impact Finance – Impacta Finance – headquartered in Jundiaí (SP), it is a startup of disruptive solutions focused on accelerating the 3D economy (digital, decentralized and decarbonized) through blockchain technology. The company designs web3 projects so that impactful businesses can transform their socio-environmental interventions into digital assets, which can be exposed to global investors through a regenerative finance index.
manawara – headquartered in Manaus (AM), it is a brand of vegan, gluten-free and lactose-free sweets, produced from Amazonian raw materials. It has a portfolio of gummy candies, biscuits, cereals and nuts. It has a rapid growth strategy for the coming years, which includes a structuring of raw material suppliers based on agroforestry and extractive production.
mazo maná – headquartered in Altamira (PA), its proposal is the production and sale of functional foods with inputs from sustainable and community extractivism in the Amazon, focusing on the domestic market and exports. The business model also includes the development of the Payments for Environmental Services platform.
