ReForest Latam bets drones and seed capsules make reforestation a business; $1M pre-seed

B2B/B2G ecosystem restoration: biotech seed capsules (iSeeds), drone sowing, and AI satellite analysis to restore native forests for carbon and biodiversity developers, landowners, and governments.

Hand-planting can't match fire scale; drone-dropped biotech seed capsules, targeted by AI analysis, cut cost per hectare to make restoration a scalable B2B business.

US$400,000 of founders' own savings; >US$1M oversubscribed pre-seed led by iThink VC (2025)

Damián Rivadeneira and Paula Gianserra founded Re-Forest Latam in 2023 in Tucumán, Argentina. The trigger was personal: their volunteer effort to restore 3 hectares of forest was dwarfed the same week by a 50,000-hectare fire in Salta. They concluded restoration had to be a technology business, not a charity — they put in US$400,000 of their own money and went 28 months without salaries.

The company built iSeeds — biodegradable capsules of native seeds activated with microorganisms — plus autonomous sowing drones that fly up to 27 km and plant thousands of trees a day, and an AI/GIS platform that matches species to micro-sites from satellite imagery. It was certified a B Corp in 2024, won Argentina's national "emprendimiento del año" award, ran 14 paid pilots, and signed partners including The Nature Conservancy; a >US$1M pre-seed led by iThink VC closed in 2025 to take the technology from TRL6 to TRL9.

Scaling: active in Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia with 400+ hectares intervened and 14+ projects, plus a framework agreement for Paraguay; the company claims restoration at about one-fifth of LatAm's ~US$7,000-per-hectare average.

Drones and activated seed capsules attack the two blockers of reforestation — labor cost and terrain access — claiming up to 20x planting speed and 25x germination effectiveness.

The founders' own US$400,000 and 28 unpaid months show the bet was conviction, not grant-chasing; revenue came from paid pilots and partners like The Nature Conservancy.

Selling restoration to carbon and biodiversity developers, landowners, and governments turns a public-good problem into a B2B service with a measurable price per hectare.

The AI/GIS platform makes precision the moat: 51 native species tested and matched to micro-sites, so scale doesn't mean generic planting.

A catastrophe can price the wedge: the founders turned an unfightable fire into a thesis that manual planting can't scale, making cost per hectare the measure converting philanthropy into a business.

As of September 2026 Re-Forest Latam is scaling: a B Corp certified in 2024 with a 12-person team in Tucumán, more than US$1M raised (including the founders' own US$400,000), operations in four countries — Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and an agreed entry into Paraguay — 14 paid pilots, and partnerships with The Nature Conservancy and Fundación Moisés Bertoni. The company targets a global restoration market projected at US$1.2 billion by 2030 and plans to move its technology from TRL6 toward TRL9 with the new capital.