The company is a joint-venture formed in 2010 from the merger of the assets of sugar, fuel and ethanol derived from Cosan and Royal Dutch Shell in Brazil.

[3] Raízen has a network of 7,000+ fuel stations under the Shell brand spread throughout Brazil and Argentina, more than 1,000 convenience stores and an ethanol production of over 2.2 billion US gallons (8,300,000 m3).

After merging with Biosev, the company now has 35 ESB (ethanol, sugar, and bioenergy) plants, with a total crushing capacity of 105 million tonnes of sugar cane per year, while also boasting 3000 megawatts of installed electric power capacity produced from sugarcane biomass (bagasse).

It aimed to certify just under 1 million hectares of affiliated sugarcane production area under the Bonsucro sustainability standard by 2020.

[4] In November 2019, Mexican multinational company FEMSA finalized a joint venture agreement with Raízen Conveniências, the retail division of Raízen, to acquire a 50% stake in the latter company, partly also to introduce the Oxxo convenience store chain (the largest in Mexico) into Brazil.