Mandalay Venture Partners building $35m war chest for agtech investments

Mark Gustowski and his innovative Brisbane-based venture capital fund is raising a war chest of up to $35m to invest in the agrifood tech and sustainability sector.

Mark Gustowski has a hunger for burgeoning agtech investments. The founder of Brisbane-based Mandalay Venture Partners is raising a war chest of up to $35m to invest in early stage firms in the agrifood tech and sustainability sector.

“We will continue to raise funds throughout the rest of this year and early into 2023 to reach our target of $30-35m,” says Gustowski. “We are looking at startup investments across the entire food and fibre value chain. Australia is a hotbed for ag and food innovation.”

He says the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine has thrown the spotlight on the need for food security, with Australia in the box seat to become a global bread basket.

“A vibrant ecosystem of research and development and support means lots of investment opportunities,” says Gustowski, who is a former chief executive of QUT Creative Enterprise Australia. Gustowski was one of the first investors in nonalcoholic spirits company Lyre’s that was started in Brisbane and is now a billion dollar company.

“Lyre’s is a good example of a great business idea that just needed capital to take off,” he says. Lyre’s, launched three years ago by Queensland serial entrepreneurs Carl Hartmann and Mark Livings, is now in 70 countries and sells a bottle every 30 seconds. Livings is now a venture partner at Mandalay.

“Mandalay is one of the few funds that are well-positioned to capitalise on these types of opportunities,” says Gustowski. “Whilst the first fund will primarily invest in Australia, a portion of our portfolio allocation will be for international opportunities.”

City Beat hears an announcement on Mandalay’s first investment is imminent with several more to come over the next year.

Mark Gustowski

Gin guru

Shaken or stirred, vodka or gin? Queensland legal eagle and winemaker Brett Heading says the Queensland martini is real with solid growth of artisan distilleries in the south east.

Latest market figures show industry wide growth up 36 per cent in 2020 from the previous year. Artisan distilleries now hold 15 per cent of the gin market, equivalent to 1.9 million bottles, growing from a stagnant five per cent share between 2016 and 2019

Heading says that with consumers looking to producers to provide a sense of place and authenticity when making their choices, his own South Burnett Distillers is leading the way. Distillation of its own base spirit for gin and vodka begins with award-winning Semillon grown by Heading’s Clovely Estate.

His chief winemaker and distiller Nick Pesudov oversees the expansion process, which will continue steadily with an ever-expanding selection.

Clovely Estate’s Semillon is also being supplied to Queensland’s first “Vermouthery”, Old Dog Vermouth, which researched this ancient drink in Europe before bringing the important martini component to Queensland. Heading says that whether your martini is from gin or vodka, it can now be from Queensland’s finest producers.

Cocktail martini

Globe trotter

Rowland boss Geoff Rodgers is racking up some frequent flyer miles at the moment as he finalises a month-long trip to North America to touch base with the Brisbane PR firm’s global affiliate FleishmanHillard. Rodgers tells City Beat that he has been reconnecting with key leaders of the global PR giant post-pandemic and to celebrate Rowland’s 15-year affiliation with the firm. Rodgers is concluding his trip this week after visiting FleishmanHillard offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver, Dallas, St Louis, Chicago, Toronto, Washington and New York. With 3,200 people in 80 offices, FleishmanHillard is one of the world’s largest and pre-eminent communication networks and a key part of the massive NYSE-listed Omnicom Group; the world’s largest marketing communication group. In New York, Rodgers met with Rachel Catanac, general manager of the New York office.

Geoff Rodgers