Parisian fintech startup finres raises €4.1 million to drive better agricultural investment decisions

Parisian fintech startup finres has raised €4.1 million of their own as it helps drive investors to make better decisions when it comes to ploughing into agriculture.  The bumper crop will be used to help finres launch its investor platform, press forward with R&D activities, and significantly ramp up presence in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe.

The €4.1 million seed funding round was led by Speedinvest alongside Illuminate Financial Management. Additional participants in the round include AFI Ventures, Kima Ventures, Plug & Play, Raise Sherpas, Tiny VC, and Better Angle. Angel investors in the round include Anna Katharina Alex, Michael Diguet, Renaud Visage, and Valentine Baudouin.

Combining the best elements of science and investment, finres’ sole purpose is to help drive better investments in better agriculture. The AI-assisted platform offers loan underwriting services that account for climate and price risks for any crop and global location.

Founded in 2019 by Florent Baarsch, former senior economist at the World Bank and the United Nations, to date finres claims to have informed more than €1.4 billion worth of deployments across 32 countries, and includes the World Bank, the United Nations, the French Development Agency (AFD), and CRDB, the largest bank in Tanzania amongst its client base.

"The challenge to ensure resilience in the agriculture industry calls for new solutions and more collaboration between scientists, and both public and private investors,” said Baarsch. “With the support provided by our investors in this seed round, finres is well positioned to accelerate the deployment of our solutions globally and help make our societies and food systems more resilient to climate change"

On the investment, Speedinvest’s Alexis Majos commented, “finres is the only solution bridging the gap between science and investment, helping financial institutions uncover investment opportunities to support agricultural resilience. We couldn’t be more excited for the future of finres as it continues to expand its solution line in this space.”