Latin America holds some of the world's most biodiverse land and some of its hungriest early-stage founders. It also holds one of the most chronically underfunded deep-tech ecosystems anywhere. Galit Flasterstein decided to do something about that. On the Top Decile Podcast, she sat down with Decile Group's Connor Sattely to explain how she built Danta Fund, a pre-seed fund backing B2B, ag-tech, food-tech, biotech, and climate-tech startups across the region.
Watch The Full Episode Here:
Galit's path into venture didn't start on Sand Hill Road. She founded and ran a travel company in Costa Rica for a decade before selling it, then launched an export marketplace connecting Latin American artisans to global buyers. Somewhere in that journey she became convinced that the real opportunity was backing the founders nobody else was writing checks to. She's a Techstars and Founder Institute mentor, and she built a deep network across the region long before she built a fund
Watch The Full Episode Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deLr4WfguIk
Why Agriculture, and Why Now
Most funds chase software. Galit went the other direction, and her reasoning is disarmingly simple. "We need to eat, drink, and breathe," she told Connor. Agriculture, she argues, belongs much higher on the list of investment priorities because it maps directly onto humanity's most basic needs. Latin America carries a long history in agriculture and agricultural exports, plus a deep bench of talented people looking to innovate in it.
She started out thinking about climate, which she calls a trendy subject. The applications changed her mind. The startups with the most defensible, hard-to-replicate innovation kept coming from agriculture and from biotech tied to animal health. "Why not invest in something that's so vital to all of us human beings and bring it globally?" she asked. To be clear about the mandate: this is a returns-driven fund. "We're for profit, so we're not an impact fund," Galit said. She's looking for commercial viability first. The fact that these solutions happen to be friendly to the climate is a feature, not the thesis.
The Fund Is the Network
If there's one throughline in Galit's story, it's networks. She recommends that anyone launching a VC fund have at least one experience as an entrepreneur first, because founders learn firsthand that it takes a whole community to make a company work. "You need to surround yourself by people who are experts," she said, especially in areas where you are not. Coming into agriculture without a technical background, she leaned on that instinct hard. "My superpower is making those connections," she explained. She recruited venture partners who could assess startups on product and commercial viability and on scientific merit. Many of her LPs are entrepreneurs, several with exits, and they now sit in on interviews with semi-finalist and finalist startups, ask questions, and often become customers, mentors, or board members to the companies. As Connor put it, the fund itself is a network.
That network also reshapes how founders raise. Galit sees the startups in her portfolio looking for something specific. "They are looking for VCs that are expert or at least have knowledge on what they are doing," she said. Generalist, agnostic capital that invests in a little of everything doesn't give the same value, and founders increasingly know it.
Deals at the Proving Ground
Asked to name a favorite deal, Galit demurred, saying it's like naming a favorite child. But she pointed to Metabix Biotech as a startup whose versatility excites her. The company built a filter used in poultry and swine farms that absorbs aerial pathogens. Swapped weekly and sent to nearby labs, the filter feeds results back to the startup, which, "by combining biotech with data analytics and AI, is predicting diseases that might happen in the farm, even with two weeks in advance." That lowers mortality rates, cuts unnecessary antibiotic use, and could eventually extend to cattle, and even to human health.
Danta's very first investment followed the same pattern: an organic additive made from shrimp shells that makes fungicide more effective, so farmers use less of it. It lowers costs, produces cleaner-looking fruit, keeps soil less saturated with agrochemicals, and now layers AI on top to predict results faster than lab or field testing alone. It's exactly the blurring of ag-tech, biotech, and climate-tech that Galit says makes the category so rich. Agriculture, in her framing, is the proving ground where tomorrow's biotech and climate deals show up first.
For LPs and Founders
Galit's advice to new managers is characteristically grounded: "Trust your gut and talk to a lot of people." Every conversation teaches you something, she says, even the LP meetings that don't convert. For LPs, the fit is clear: people in agriculture, entrepreneurs who know the hardships firsthand, climate-tech and health-science backers, and the science-curious who love the crossover between animal, plant, and human health. For founders building at the intersection of biodiversity and technology in Latin America, Danta offers capital attached to a network of operators who actually understand what you're building.
Learn more about the fund and request access on Decile Access: https://decileaccess.com/funds/danta-fund-i
About Danta Fund I
Danta Fund I is a pre-seed and seed fund backing Latin American ag-tech, food-tech, biotech, and climate-tech founders, with a thesis rooted in the region's biodiversity and the talent building on top of it. It is led by Galit Flasterstein, who built and sold a boutique travel company in Costa Rica and ran an export marketplace connecting Latin American artisans to global buyers before turning to venture. Danta invests for commercial returns while backing solutions that are friendly to the climate.