The archive · Climate & Energy · Product decision · 2024–2025
Guarda bets satellite climate insurance cracks Brazil's farm coverage gap; R$4.5M pre-seed
Brazilian insurtech replaces field inspections with satellite climate triggers; R$4.5M pre-seed from Randon Ventures, aiming for 10,000 hectares.
Guarda
What the business is
Parametric insurance against drought and excess rain for rural producers, with contracts tied to satellite climate indices and automatic payouts in up to 30 days.
Starting capital：R$4.5M (≈US$806K) pre-seed led by Randon Ventures; founders put first money in July 2024
How it started
Founded in 2024 by Paula Caldeira (10+ years in finance at BTG Pactual and BofA, co-founder of Plugify) and Luiz Fernando Guerreiro (Petlove co-founder), after farmer interviews showed the same complaints: rural insurance in Brazil covers under 10% of production because it is costly, limited, full of contractual obligations, and dependent on slow field inspections.
What happened
Launched publicly as Natu Seguros in September 2024, won an Agrimatching category in April 2025, then rebranded as Guarda. In December 2025 it raised a R$4.5M pre-seed led by Randon Ventures (Randoncorp's investment arm), with agro, insurance and fintech angels plus the Colligo agtech club; the goal is a pilot with a credit channel covering 5,000–10,000 hectares in the first half of 2026.
How it ended up
Early traction only: one cotton producer covered last season renewed for the next; quotes already issued from Rio Grande do Sul to Matopiba. Payouts are carried by partner reinsurers, not Guarda's balance sheet, and the product is sold up to 40 days before a risk window begins.
Background
Guarda's bet is that Brazilian rural insurance is stuck below 10% adoption not because farmers reject protection, but because the traditional product is built on productivity claims, field inspections and paperwork. The founders, Paula Caldeira and Luiz Fernando Guerreiro, spent almost a year interviewing about 500 producers, dozens of cooperatives and nearly every rural insurance broker before writing a line of product code.
The answer they built replaces the inspector with an index: policies are priced and triggered purely by satellite-measured climate data, such as soil moisture for drought or rainfall metrics for harvest-time rain. There is no inspection, no productivity obligation, payouts land in up to 30 days, and reinsurers — not Guarda — carry the risk on their balance sheets.
In December 2025 the bet got its first institutional validation: a R$4.5M pre-seed led by Randon Ventures, with angels from agro, insurance and fintech (including ex-IRB CFO Rodrigo Botti and Spin Pay founder Alan Chusid). The money targets a proof of concept with a credit channel — cooperatives, resellers or banks — to cover 5,000 to 10,000 hectares in the first half of 2026.
What has to be true
- Less than 10% of Brazilian agricultural production is insured versus roughly 40% in developed markets, yet extreme weather caused over R$330 billion in sector losses from 1995 to 2023.
- The parametric design removes the two biggest friction points — inspection and subjective productivity claims — so coverage can reach producers with no history, new fields or uncertified cultivars.
- Selling through crop-credit flows means the insurance rides on a transaction farmers already make, instead of requiring a separate sales process.
- The founders came from adjacent businesses (Petlove, Plugify) with Porto Seguro as a strategic partner, giving them distribution credibility in insurance.
What can be applied
Farmers avoided insurance over inspections and paperwork; Guarda's fix was to rebuild the claim around satellite triggers so coverage rides the crop-credit flow farmers already use.
Aftermath
As of mid-December 2025, Guarda had announced its R$4.5M pre-seed led by Randon Ventures and was preparing a proof of concept with a structured credit channel, targeting 5,000–10,000 hectares covered in the first half of 2026, mostly from second-crop planting in the 2025/26 season. It continues direct sales through insurance brokers and has issued quotes across Brazil, with a returning cotton producer as its first repeat customer.
Sources
- Startup Guarda capta R$ 4,5 milhões em rodada pré-seed para escalar seguro climático digital
- Guarda capta R$ 4,5 milhões para estruturar seguro climático digital para agronegócio
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