Why We Invested in Blooms | Unlocking smart capital to drive the next wave of Latin America’s fresh produce boom

Despite supplying half of the U.S.’s fresh produce imports, Latin American farmers face a staggering $3 billion+ financing gap, hindering business expansion and the adoption of climate-resilience solutions. Traditional banks perceive agriculture as too risky, leaving small and mid-sized growers struggling to access capital. The consequences? Lost income opportunities, unstable supply chains, and limited resilience against climate shocks. Blooms is stepping in to change that.

The Market Need

Latin America’s fresh produce sector plays a crucial role in global food supply chains, with the U.S. importing 60% of its fruits and 40% of its vegetables from the region. Mexico, the biggest contributor, is currently the leading supplier of tomatoes, avocados, raspberries, bell peppers, and strawberries for the U.S. In 2023, Mexican fresh products exports were valued at $19 billion, with projections to reach $30 billion by 2030. Despite this growth, a $3 billion+ credit gap limits growers’ ability to expand and compete in international markets.

Smallholder farmers (SHFs) and mid-size growers in Latin America struggle to secure fair and flexible financing due to high-risk perceptions, lack of collateral, and rural informality. As a result, these growers are left to rely on informal lenders or financial institutions with exorbitant interest rates. Without access to appropriate financial services, these farmers face severe cash flow constraints, restricting their ability to scale, invest in climate resilience, and participate in more attractive and profitable export markets. Additionally, the region’s growing climate challenges, such as droughts and unpredictable weather patterns, deepen the need for flexible and reliable financial solutions.

Unlike other markets, where land consolidation has led to the loss of agricultural production by smallholders, Mexico’s unique property rights system provides significant protections to SHFs and indigenous communities. Ejidos and communal land represent more than half of Mexico’s land, limiting the ability of large agribusiness to expand through direct land ownership. Hence, major exporters rely on SHFs sourcing to meet production demands.

Nearly all (97%) of Mexico’s farmers operate under 20 hectares of land and there are 2.6 million smallholder farmers across the country operating on less than 2 hectares. As a result, agricultural businesses, aggregators, food processing businesses, pack-houses, and leading exporters are dependent on SHFs to secure their supply. As the bedrock of agricultural production in Mexico, smallholders are embedded into export-oriented supply chains for a diverse range of products, from wheat and barley to berries, citrus, mangos, and asparagus.

The Solution

Blooms is an agri-fintech company unlocking liquidity for produce exporters and the smallholder farmers at the front lines of their supply chains. Blooms has developed a highly customized platform which provides rapid credit analysis and disbursement mechanisms, offering factoring and working capital loans tailored to the unique cash flow cycles of agricultural produce exporters. Through an AI-driven risk model and a U.S. regulatory framework (PACA license) that enforces prompt payments from U.S. buyers, Blooms reduces credit risk for growers while unlocking essential liquidity.

• Factoring for growers: Blooms purchases unpaid invoices from exporters, ensuring immediate access to capital without requiring collateral.

• Working capital loans: Blooms offers revenue-based financing structured to align with crop cycles and export payment terms.

• FX and payments integration: Blooms facilitates seamless cross-border financial services for customers.

By improving exporter liquidity, Blooms strengthens the entire value chain. Helping exporters shorten their cash conversion cycles ensures capital flows downstream to SHFs, strengthening their financial resilience and capacity to withstand climate shocks. Several exporters already offer ethical financing to their SHF supply chains, and with Blooms’ support, they can grow these programs.

“We are a grower-centric company and are obsessed with providing produce growers/exporters with financial and technological tools to help them navigate the complexities of global trade, while empowering them to grow and use sustainable practices. Our data-driven AI-enabled solutions also support growers with better financial management and ultimately enhance their freedom to trade.” Francisco Meré co-founder & CEO Blooms

Investment Rationale

Our investment in Blooms is grounded in MCV’s climate resilience and adaptation thesis. Agriculture is highly vulnerable to climate change, with extreme temperatures, drought, and erratic rain threatening yields and livelihoods across Latin America. Farmers urgently require capital to adapt and thrive in this changing environment and Blooms plays a catalytic role.

By providing access to financing ahead of harvest revenue, Blooms enable farmers to invest in climate-resilient infrastructure (e.g., covered agriculture systems), adopt more expensive regenerative inputs, and use biological products to implement climate-smart protocols, among other improvements. Additionally, Blooms is actively embedding climate considerations into its business model by offering flexible finance that accounts for climate-related disruptions, and by partnering with biological inputs providers to replace traditional chemical fertilizers and pesticides and expand access to sustainable farming solutions.

Next Steps

Since launching in Q3 2024, Blooms has secured three $500K factoring facilities, financed three clients reaching over 200 SHFs, and built a $46.8M pipeline spanning mangos, avocados, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and other produce across Mexico’s primary agricultural regions. This pipeline covers 11 key states (including key agricultural hubs such as Sinaloa, Jalisco, Michoacán, and Guanajuato) and includes exporters sourcing from over 1,000 SHFs. The vast majority of farmers (up to 90%) in these states have plot sizes of less than 20 hectares and more than 60% of farmers in states such as Michoacán, San Luis Potosí, and Querétaro operate on less than 5 hectares, highlighting the significant role of SHFs in agricultural activity across these regions.

By driving financial inclusion in the agribusiness sector, Blooms is not only unlocking new growth opportunities but also ensuring that Latin America’s farmers can thrive in the face of climate change.

Stay tuned for more updates on our portfolio here.