Lattice memo

Lattice is a mobile-first management platform for agricultural co-operatives in Latin America, replacing the spreadsheets and legacy on-premise software (Cropsifter) that co-ops use to track members, harvests, payments, and inputs. The company is at $480K ARR across 14 paying co-ops in Mexico and Colombia, growing 18% month-over-month. It was founded by Marisol Vega (CEO, ex-McKinsey agribusiness practice, raised on a Colombian coffee farm) and Tomás Aguirre (CTO, ex-Globant). Lattice is raising a $3M seed at a $12M post-money valuation; Hemrock would take $1M for a target ~8% stake. The thesis is that LatAm agriculture is digitizing a decade behind its US/EU peers, the incumbent is an unmaintained on-prem product, and a founder with genuine domain roots can win the category co-op by co-op.^[1][2][3]

Two issues must be resolved before a commitment. First, customer concentration is high: the top 3 co-ops represent 62% of ARR, so the loss of a single anchor would materially impair the growth story — the partner should understand contract length and switching costs for those three. Second, the data room is incomplete: there is no financial model (so unit economics and runway are unverified) and no cap table (so existing dilution is unknown). A secondary concern is FX — ARR is billed in MXN/COP but reported in USD unhedged, making the headline figure sensitive to currency moves.^[1][2]

[Partner to complete]

Lattice sells a smartphone-based SaaS to agricultural co-operatives, which are member-owned organizations that aggregate smallholder farmers to buy inputs and sell crops collectively. The product digitizes member registries, harvest intake and weigh-ins, per-member payment ledgers, and input distribution — workflows that co-ops run today on paper and Excel or on Cropsifter, an on-premise desktop tool from the pre-smartphone era. Current footprint is 14 paying co-ops across Mexico and Colombia, ranging from ~200 to ~4,000 members each.^[1]

There are tens of thousands of agricultural co-ops across Latin America managing a large share of the region's coffee, cacao, and produce output. The incumbent software (Cropsifter) is on-premise, predates mobile, and has roughly 150 co-op customers — a proof that co-ops will pay for software, and that the incumbent is beatable on form factor. Digitization tailwinds (smartphone penetration, buyer traceability requirements, and government formalization programs) are pulling co-ops toward modern tooling. The near-term obtainable market is smaller than the headline given fragmentation and long, relationship-driven sales cycles, but the category has a defensible wedge for a domain-native founder.^[1]

Two-person founding team. Marisol Vega (CEO) spent four years in McKinsey's Bogotá office in the agribusiness practice (2018–2022, verified via alumni directory and a former manager) and holds a Wharton MBA (2020); she grew up on a coffee farm in Antioquia that her family still operates. Tomás Aguirre (CTO) was an engineer at Globant before co-founding Lattice. The pairing is a domain-and-go-to-market lead with a hands-on technical co-founder.^[1][2]

Founder-market fit is unusually direct: Marisol's family co-op was Lattice's first pilot, and reference calls with two co-op managers described her as a genuine insider rather than a software vendor. Her McKinsey agribusiness work gives her a portfolio view of how dozens of co-ops operate, and the domain relationships shorten what is otherwise a trust-heavy, relationship-driven sales cycle. This is the single strongest element of the deal.^[1][2]

[Partner to complete — character assessment, founder-market fit judgment, and overall team score]

Company-stated traction is $480K ARR across 14 co-ops with 18% month-over-month growth. The growth rate is strong for a relationship-driven sales motion, but the base is small and the mix is concentrated — the top 3 co-ops account for 62% of ARR per the customer list. Two co-op managers confirmed live, daily use of the product in reference calls, which is a positive durability signal. The ARR figure is reported in USD but billed in local currency, so treat it as approximate pending the local-currency book.^[1][2]

Lattice charges co-ops a per-member annual subscription with tiered pricing by co-op size. Unit economics cannot be evaluated because no financial model was provided — this is the most important gap in the data room. Additionally, the company bills in MXN/COP but reports ARR in USD without hedging and re-prices only annually, so a 10–15% currency move would swing reported revenue materially. Partner should request the financial model, the local-currency ARR book, and the annual re-pricing history.^[1][2]

The dominant incumbent is Cropsifter, a legacy on-premise co-op management tool with ~150 customers that predates the smartphone era; Lattice positions as its mobile-first replacement. A smaller adjacent player, AgriTech Pro, focuses on single-farm management rather than co-ops. Lattice's defensibility rests on being embedded in the co-op's daily payment and intake workflows plus the founder's relationship moat, rather than on any structural network effect — a real but not impregnable position at this stage.^[1]

Three items before commitment. First, concentration: obtain contract terms, tenure, and switching costs for the top-3 co-ops (62% of ARR) and understand what happens to the plan if one leaves. Second, the missing financial model and cap table: request both — the model to underwrite unit economics and runway, the cap table to understand existing dilution before pricing the round. Third, FX: get the local-currency ARR book and understand the re-pricing cadence. Structural risks: a two-person team with no obvious go-to-market hire yet, and a long, relationship-driven sales cycle that is hard to accelerate with capital alone.^[1][2][3]

Base case: Lattice becomes the default co-op operating system in its two beachhead countries, expands across LatAm, and reaches a mid-eight-figure revenue business supporting a strategic acquisition by an agribusiness input supplier or a regional software roll-up. At the $12M entry and a $1M check for ~8%, a credible regional-leader outcome returns several multiples over a 6–8 year horizon. Downside: concentration bites (an anchor co-op churns), FX erodes reported growth, and the company stalls as a sub-scale regional tool — at which point the position is a partial loss or write-off. The partner judgment fields below capture the actual underwriting call.^[1][2]

[Partner to complete — base-case target multiple, upside thesis, downside floor, target ownership]