Agtechs and the Innovation Ecosystem of the Espírito Santo

• Autor(a) principal: Castro, Christiane Barbosa e
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Ramos, Paulo Henrique Bertucci
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Revista de Empreendedorismo e Gestão de Pequenas Empresas - REGEPE
• Texto Completo: https://www.regepe.org.br/regepe/article/view/1767
• topic: Agribusiness; Challenges; Opportunities; New business models.; Agronegócio; Desafios; Oportunidades; Novos modelos de negócio.; Agronegócio; Desafios; Oportunidades; Novos modelos de negócio.

Objective: to identify the most relevant incentives available to agtechs - also known as agritechs or agrotechs; the challenges they face to reach the scalability phase; and the relationship of these challenges with possible limitations of the local innovation ecosystem. Methodology/approach: the data were collected through qualitative research and examined using the content analysis technique. Main results: (1) the entrepreneurs of the interviewed Agtechs identified different market demands and opportunities; (2) the agtechs relied mainly on support, through incubation and mentoring; (3) these nascent companies had greater difficulty in the prototyping stage, in the identification of resource sources, and the formation of a team, which indicates the need to expand support and offer ecosystem solutions in this direction, as well as to facilitate the access to investors; and (4) the Espírito Santo’s innovation ecosystem still presents a series of challenges so that it can fully fulfill the role of encouraging, in a structured way, startups called agtechs. Theoretical/methodological contributions: the results obtained demonstrate the need for an entrepreneurial ecosystem to foster the development of agtechs and reflect the main difficulties faced by entrepreneurs of these nascent companies in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo. Relevance/originality: the issues involved in the study comprise themes of central interest for a deeper understanding of the applied dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems and Agtechs in the context of the Espírito Santo. JEL CODE: L26, O31, Q13