Fund IV Brings In a Diversified Global Investor Base and Increases AgFunder's AUM by 10x in 2 Years
SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / March 22, 2022 / AgFunder, one of the world's most active investors in foodtech and agtech startups, has increased its AUM to $160 million - 10x in two years - with the first close of its fourth fund.
Among the set of global LPs in the $60 million first close are Japan's~$1 trillion food and agriculture bank Norinchukin Bank, Alexandria Venture Investments, part of America's leading real estate group ARE, and European climate-focused family office Nest.
Fund IV is targeting $100 million and is set to close in the late spring on the back of rapidly increasing investor demand for AgFunder's platform approach to transforming the world's food and agriculture industries with new innovation.
"On the back of the pandemic, and even more recently the Ukraine war, we were still surprised about how quickly we closed these funds, and investors increasingly recognize the power of our global venture capital and media platform. But these crises have also emphasized the critical need to invest in the future of our global food and agriculture industry creating urgency among institutional investors globally," said partners Michael Dean, Rob Leclerc and Manuel Gonzalez.
"We are extremely honoured to partner up with AgFunder as they have proven over the past years that they are able to move the needle in agriculture and food innovation. They've been trailblazers in the space, supporting entrepreneurs long before this became a topic on many investor's agenda," said Anouk Schoors, investment manager from Nest.
"They've made the space more investable for all of us, learning what works and what doesn't, as the dynamics are much more long term."
Fund IV will invest in primarily Seed and Series A startups operating across the food and agriculture supply chain, with some flexibility to invest at later stages if opportunities arise. AgFunder is focused on impactful themes such as decarbonization, agricultural automation, and food as medicine.
AgFunder's portfolio of 60+ transformational agrifoodtech companies includes leading names across agtech and foodtech including the John Deere of vertical farming Intelligent Growth Solutions, food-as-medicine discovery platforms Brightseed and Faeth Therapeutics, fast-growing emerging market farmer marketplaces with millions of users each DeHaat and Wefarm, animal-free leather producer MycoWorks, molecular coffee company Atomo!and Latin American eGrocer Justo, to name a few.
AgFunder's earlier funds have achieved three exits to-date including Bear Flag Robotics, which was acquired by John Deere, RootAI, which was acquired by AppHarvest and Greenlight Biosciences, which listed on the Nasdaq via a SPAC at a $1.5bn valuation.
Born out of its media platform AgFunderNews in 2013, today AgFunder has a subscriber base of over 90,000 leaders from top companies in food, agriculture, technology, and finance.With that subscriber base, along with
AgFunder's proprietary and machine learning-backed knowledge base of over 40,000 startups,we can source deal flow, expertise, investors, and information for both us and our portfolio companies.
About AgFunder
AgFunder is a digitally-native venture capital fund and one of the most active foodtech and agtech investors globally. We're rethinking venture capital for the 21st century and with our publication AFN we've built a global ecosystem of 90,000+ subscribers. This gives us one of the most powerful networks to help build impactful and important companies.
"You can read more about AgFunder and this close here."
For more information, contact:
Louisa Burwood-Taylor +447940501310, louisa@agfunder.com or Rob Leclerc, +19178733037, rob@agfunder.com
SOURCE: AgFunder
View source version on accesswire.com:
https://www.accesswire.com/693989/AgFunder-Captures-Increasing-Urgent-Investor-Demand-for-Agrifoodtech-With-New-Fund
