Monthly Archives: April 2024

Photo: Rodrigo Duarte/AMAZ

Accelerator seeks businesses that generate positive impact for the Amazon for acceleration journey and investment of up to R$ 400 thousand

Businesses that generate a positive impact on the Amazon, contributing to keeping the forest standing and at the same time generating income for the region's populations, are on the company's radar. AMAZ impact accelerator. 

Registration for the 2024 Business Call is open until 12/04 with the aim of finding startups and innovative businesses to be accelerated and receive investment of up to R$ 400 thousand.

Interested parties can register and find out the full rules of the initiative on the page amaz.org.br/chamada2024.

AMAZ seeks businesses that generate a positive impact in the rural and forestry regions of the Amazon, have a product or service already tested on the market and operate or plan to operate in the region.

Startups and companies that are developing impact businesses aimed at forest conservation, biodiversity conservation and socio-environmental development in the Amazon can register.

Initiatives that are already developing activities in a practical and operational way will be considered: prototype developed, in the market test phase; tested product, in the market launch phase; or product launched, in the fundraising or expansion phase.

Sustainable businesses are expected in the following sectors: agriculture, livestock and sustainable rural production; sustainable forest management and production; socio-biodiversity products; reforestation and agroforestry production; sustainable and community-based tourism; food, cosmetics; crafts and sustainable fashion, logistics, communication and financial services; technologic solutions; marketing and market access platforms; education and entrepreneurship with socio-environmental impact; mitigation and adaptation to climate change; carbon and other socio-environmental products and services; treatment of solid waste/pollutants and improving access to water for rural and riverside communities.

In other words, businesses that generate solutions to the main social and environmental problems in the Amazon, seeking to conserve or recover forest areas, value knowledge and biodiversity, generate income and quality of life for rural and riverside communities.

Among the benefits offered by AMAZ are:

• Impact thesis development and business modeling
• Workshops and facilitation workshops on topics such as management and impact assessment, market strategies, marketing and communication, logistics, etc.
• Mentoring and monitoring program 
• Legal and accounting advice specialized in impact businesses
• Communication consultancy 
• Knowledge and management support with follow-up
• Scholarship and Small Support Program
• Access to AMAZ's network of investors and partners

“Our expectation for the Call in 2024 is not only to be able to evaluate businesses and learn about interesting businesses that have the purpose of impacting the Amazon, but also to support and facilitate the path to a possible future investment for all businesses. And this involves both the acquisition of knowledge and maturity regarding what is the minimum necessary to carry out this fundraising and even a more advanced business modeling, which includes impact as an important asset”, analyzes Rafael Moreira Ribeiro, responsible for the selection and acceleration of AMAZ.

THE AMAZ impact accelerator is coordinated by Idesam (Institute for Conservation and Sustainable Development of the Amazon), and has a hybrid financing fund (blended finance) of R$ 25 million for investment in impact businesses over the next five years, the first focused exclusively on the region.  

Its founders and strategic partners are Fundo Vale, Instituto humanize, ICS (Instituto Clima e Sociedade), Good Energies Foundation, Fundo JBS pela Amazônia and PPA (Plataforma Parceiros pela Amazônia). It also has a wide network of partners such as Move.Social, Sense-Lab, Mercado Livre, ICE, SBSA Advogados, Climate Ventures and private investors.

Photo: Daniel Pinheiro/Disclosure Mahta

Endeavor's Scale Up program, which drives companies through a personalized acceleration journey, in direct connection with a network made up of major entrepreneurship references in Brazil, selected Mahta, a company in the AMAZ portfolio, for the first cycle semester of 2024. The program is the gateway to becoming an Endeavor network entrepreneur. 

“Almost all of the best startups in Brazil were part of Endeavor's Scale Up program. Then, in the future – you need to grow a lot for this – companies go through a filter, which is global, and only around 10 or 15 in the world, usually two or three from Brazil, effectively become Endeavor entrepreneurs. Brazil today has ten unicorns, and nine are from Endeavor. In this Scale Up cycle, Mahta is the only consumer products company. As the main criteria for evaluating and approving the program are results, growth and, especially, growth potential, most startups are made up of fintechs, puretechs (pure technology) or B2B, the focus of much of the investment. We were an exception, which for us is a double honor,” analyzes Max Petrucci, founding partner of Mahta.

Petrucci, who has even been a mentor at Endeavor for a decade, highlights the importance of this moment for Mahta: “Being part of this process is very important for us, especially because of the endorsement. Being selected among the best 40 startups in Brazil is incredible. And we are proud to be at Endeavor and to be part of AMAZ. A bridge that we can even help build, because today these two universes are far apart. The reality of the Endeavor entrepreneur is very different from the reality of the AMAZ entrepreneur, and vice versa. Both initiatives are very good, and I hope we can generate closer ties between these two worlds”, he adds. 

Photo: Andrea Azevedo/AMAZ

The first workshop of the AMAZ 2024 acceleration cycle took place from 21 to 23/03 and brought together, in Manaus, the businesses selected by last year's Call: MOMA and Zeno Nativo.

The program covered indicator management and impact modeling, including the financial aspect. In addition to the AMAZ team, the entrepreneurs were attended by Sara Sampaio, Executive Director of Café Apuí Agroflorestal, who shared the management of business indicators and the decision-making process.

Visits to other businesses based in Manaus – Na'kau, which is part of the AMAZ portfolio, and Warabu -, and also to Bemol Distribution Centers completed the activities.

“This first workshop of the 2024 acceleration cycle aimed to work with the notion of how data can be transformed into important information for business decision-making. We brought theoretical aspects, as well as construction and refinement of business financial indicators, work that will be continued over the next few weeks”, highlights Rafael Moreira, responsible for the selection and acceleration of AMAZ.

Rafael also highlights the importance of connections with other businesses operating in the Amazon, with the possibility, for accelerating entrepreneurs, of realizing different levels of knowledge organization, and approaching possible commercial points for both businesses.

For Vivian Chun, from MOMA, the highlight of the workshop was the demonstration of robust impact reporting benchmarks: “This was inspiring, as was the visit to the Bemol Distribution Center, which is quite impressive and gives a dimension of grandeur. when dealing with so many brands.” MOMA is in the process of expanding its B2B strategy, and contact with commercial spaces with the potential to sell products was an important point of this first face-to-face meeting conducted by the AMAZ team.

“Acceleration provides extremely valuable networking. And it contributes to my entrepreneurial journey, bringing a lot of reflection and encouragement for MOMA to grow. Each acceleration that we participate in is a different process, because we are always at different phases of the business and maturity. So this process with AMAZ brings some pulses, guiding questions to reflect on whether what we are doing will have results and when, whether we are certain of our purpose, anyway. Provocations for us to improve more and more.”

Zeno Gemaque, from Zeno Nativo, highlights the lessons learned from the examples: “The work of Café Apuí Agroflorestal really caught my attention. I saw that it's not just us who have difficulties, they also face many challenges similar to ours. And that gives us hope, because we saw a project similar to ours that is working. The work with financial modeling was also extremely important. I also leave with many doubts and questions, but I know that we will address them in the next online connections with the AMAZ team. All of this contributes greatly to our growth. We learned a lot that we will apply here at Zeno Nativo.”

Coi Belluzzo, also from Zeno Nativo, echoes the importance of the connection with Café Apuí Agroflorestal and other businesses: “The visits we made to the entrepreneurs at Na'kau and Warabu, both involved in Amazonian cocoa, were very important for us . These visits will certainly bear fruit for us. It was a very intense week of work, with a lot of information to digest and apply to the business.”

Photo: Vivalá Disclosure

Vivalá, a business that is part of the AMAZ portfolio, is one of the startups participating in the EmbraturLAB Acceleration Program, which promotes the competitiveness of the tourism sector in order to improve the experience of foreigners visiting Brazil.

The program is a partnership between EmbraturLAB and Turistech Hub Brasil, one of the main innovation hubs in Latin America. The Hub was created to lead the tourism innovation agenda and foster the sector's competitiveness and environmental sustainability. EmbraturLAB has a partnership between Embratur, universities, researchers and entrepreneurs who are promoting innovation actions in tourism.

In the last phase of the process, scheduled to end in April, three startups (iFriend, Vivalá and Destinos Inteligentes) carry out practical tests based on the tourist solutions developed. Vivalá translated the website and its main materials into English and Spanish, increasing the number of people who can be reached by sustainable itineraries, and is developing technological solutions to attract foreign audiences to live sustainable tourism experiences in Brazil .

For the EmbraturLAB proof of concept, Vivalá developed a itinerary with a one-day adventure experience, all focused on sustainability in Rio de Janeiro, focusing on biodiversity, available for the 2024 calendar. 

“We have dedicated efforts, resources and time to developing extensive promotional material in Portuguese, English and Spanish, in addition to developing an affiliate platform so that we can have enough technology to sell Brazil with partners around the world in real time . This will be an important leap in the commercial expansion of ecotourism, adventure and community-based tourism with foreigners”, highlights the co-founder and executive director of Vivalá, Daniel Cabrera.

And the first results of the proof of concept are beginning to emerge from the Amazon more quickly: “The Amazon is the biome that welcomed the most foreigners into our portfolio. Today we have experiences of ecotourism, community-based tourism and adventure, with indigenous, riverside and quilombola communities, in the states of Acre, Amazonas, Pará and Tocantins. And soon, we will reach the fifth state, Roraima, with experiences in one of the largest mountains in Brazil: Mount Roraima”, adds Cabrera.