AgTech start-ups chasing millions at high-stakes dinner with venture capital investors from US, Europe
Five companies are pitching venture capital investors from the US and Europe worth some $450bn on Monday night, in what one executive is calling a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Venture capital investors from Europe, the US and Asia representing some $450bn in capital have descended on Adelaide for an AgriTech pitch nigh event, with local start-ups pitching for millions in investment over dinner in what some are considering could be their ‘make or break’ moment.
In an event led by AgriTech network group evokeAG, five start-ups from Australia and New Zealand – who have each previously raised venture capital – will pitch a room of domestic and international investors including executives from Anterra Capital, Foodshot Global, Temasek, Tenacious Ventures and Kinneret Impact Ventures.
One start-up vying for funding is Leaf Protein Co, a plant protein start-up led by co-founder Fern Ho, who is chasing $US$1.4m in investment to scale up pilot plant production and build a team of food scientists as well as process and operations engineers.
“Our mission is to build a library of functional leaf protein ingredients that are highly digestible, allergen-free and sustainable, enabling food companies and manufacturers to create the next generation of more nutritious and tastier plant-based foods,” she said in an interview ahead of Monday’s dinner.
“Telling our story to domestic and international investors is a huge opportunity. We’re looking for investors who share our commitment to creating a better food system, and who might also have their own entrepreneurial experience; who’ll understand the challenges, and help us navigate the vast ecosystem to accelerate what we’re trying to achieve.
“The investor dinner is a once in a lifetime opportunity … Not only could these investors bring the capital we need to scale to pilot production, but – with a passion for agrifood innovation to solve the challenges facing humanity – these investors align with our mission statement, too.”
Venture capital investor Victor Friedberg is the founder and chairman of FoodShot Global, a US-based investment platform focused on food-related innovations. Mr Friedberg led investment into Beyond Meat and sweetgreen – both resulting in IPOs – and his upcoming fund, New Epoch Capital, is launching in 2023.
“I think Australia is a particularly ripe market for this space that looks to understand our food and its properties in fundamentally different ways. Australia is home to some really exciting, cutting-edge science, research and companies,” Mr Friedberg said.
“This was one of the many reasons we decided to establish FoodShot APAC in Australia initially, as the starting point into the Asia Pacific.”
The dinner marks the first event in a three-day program in which 1600 delegates are expected at Adelaide’s convention centre for AgriFutures evokeAG, a summit being dubbed Asia-Pacific’s premier agrifoodtech event.
John Harvey, managing director of AgriFutures, said start-ups have an increasingly important part to play in our food system given the catastrophic impacts of war, inflation, a global pandemic and climate change.
“We’ve seen an explosion of new technologies in the last five years, largely digital tech, that do not respect political, territory or sector boundaries – they’re highly scalable and globally relevant. And this scalability has attracted a new level of investment with an agrifood tech focus,” he said.
“At Monday’s dinner we will hear from five start-ups who are pitching to some of the world’s most influential agrifood tech investors representing more than $450bn in capital and we’re delighted to welcome international investors back to evokeAG 2023.
“In 2022, the domestic-only investor pitch dinner attracted local investors who represented $26.5bn worth of capital, and all of the five start-ups who pitched last year entered into negotiations after the evening.
“For the founders in the room, tonight represents a remarkable opportunity to connect with global investors, tap into the global capital landscape.”
The event comes one week after The Australian first revealed tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes joined venture capital outfits including the CSIRO-backed Main Sequence, Lowercarbon Capital and Wollemi Capital in ploughing $105m into one of the nation’s fastest-growing AgriTech start-ups, Loam, which is launching its carbon removal technology in the Australian market.
