U.S. Agtech Company Agro.Club Collaborates with Spanish Neo-Bank Crealsa to Digitize Financing in Agriculture
2022-04-27 00:31
Agro.Club, a digital sales enablement platform, and Crealsa, the first Spanish neo-bank for professionals, join forces to offer innovative financing tools for the agriculture industry. Agro.Club’s deep expertise in Agribusiness and Sales Enablement Platforms, combined with Crealsa’s cutting edge Financial Services offering, will deliver a comprehensive suite of products tailored for this sector. Among others, this partnership will offer factoring, supply chain financing, transactional services – and “Buy Now Pay Later,” in the near future.
According to fi-compass research, Spain is the third largest agricultural producer in the EU-27. It has a highly diverse agriculture sector, with a very clear regional specialization. However, according to the surveys conducted among Spanish farmers, high production costs and low selling prices are the central problems for them. As the research states, more than 70% of Spanish farmers applied for financing in 2017, which is substantially higher than the EU-27 average of 30%. While purchase of machinery, equipment and facilities turned out to be the main purposes for bank loans, working capital financing is still an underserved need.
Michiel de Jongh, Chief Growth Officer and Board member of Agro.Club, “As our industry knowledge backed up by recent research shows, agriculture needs innovative technology tools. An Agro.Club recent survey reveals that more than 90% of Spanish farmers and distributors are interested in acquiring analytical tools to better manage orders and optimize marketing programs. With such a reliable partner like Crealsa we’re eager to embed financial solutions across the platform to unlock new business and to provide financing for under-serviced market segments. The collaboration is tech-enabled by Toqio, an embedded finance infrastructure provider.”
José Molina, CEO of Crealsa noted, “Crealsa is the alternative to traditional banking for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as self-employed professionals and Sole Traders. To consolidate this positioning, we have forged alliances with national and international leaders in the Financial and Technological fields like Agro.Club in order to offer an outstanding value proposition to clients.” Molina continues, “as a neobank, Crealsa provides Companies and Self-Employed Professionals with agile and flexible financing options with full transactional functionality, providing its customers with a unique range of services for their entire business.”
Founded in 2018 Agro.Club is a U.S. based technology company operating in three of the world’s largest agriculture hubs. With its platform modules including e-commerce, grain procurement, order management, business intelligence, CRM, and sales enablement, Agro.Club provides digital solutions for input manufacturers, retailers, grain companies and farmers. The company has over 100 major corporate customers and $200 million of annualized transaction value.
Crealsa is the first Spanish Neo-bank specialized on Companies and Sole Traders to offer financial services such as IBANs, cards, immediate transfers, factoring, confirming, loans or payroll advances to Companies and Sole Traders. Since its creation in 2009, it has supported 4,000 customers funding 50,000 transactions totaling around €450 million euros.