AgTech Venture Capital News
Announcement of New Food and Agriculture Venture Fund
CHICAGO- Seed 2 Growth Ventures, or S2G Ventures announced the launch of a new food and agriculture venture fund.
The fund’s goal is to catalyze innovation to meet growing consumer demands for healthy, sustainable and local food. With $125 million in deployable capital and operating funds, S2G is believed to be the largest such fund in the U.S.
N.Y. Victor Friedberg, S2G Ventures co-founder and managing director says, “We’re seeing tectonic shifts in the food industry that consumers are driving. People want better tasting, more nutritious, healthy and sustainable food. The problem is our existing food system is designed to produce cheap calories, and it is not designed to supply healthy, sustainable and affordable nutrition at scale, This provides a great opportunity for innovators and investors, and S2G is seizing the opportunity.”
Chuck Templeton, founder and former CEO of OpenTable, and Sanjeev Krishnan, a career investor focused on venture and growth companies, join Friedberg as the team guiding investment decisions at S2G. The investment strategy is described as “soil to shelf”, which is a systems approach to investing.
"This $1.4 trillion sector is undergoing massive change and is under-invested with risk capital,” says Krishnan. “We think our approach of understanding the system from ‘soil to shelf’ is a unique and proactive way to create value, minimize risk and feed the changing consumer.”
Interested areas for S2G partners are:
- Soil health and sustainable land management
- Organic, non-GMO and other “identity” produce and commodities
- Controlled-environment growing platforms and brands
- Real, nutritious and functional ingredients
- Healthy consumer packaged goods
- Food logistics, including storage, distribution and transportation
- Healthy food retail and restaurant formats
- IT platforms that increase access to healthy, sustainable and local food
