Mega funds from Astanor and Humble Growth, AeroFarms emerges from Ch. 11, all talk no corporate action on regen ag?


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Last call for AgFunder Fund IV: $90m closed already; final close of $100-125m soon

Meet us!

Rob Leclerc is speaking at the SOSV Climate Tech Summit, September 26-27. Register to join 8,000 participants here.

Sofia Ramirez, Louisa Burwood-Taylor, and Jenn Marston will be at the Rethink events in London at the end of September. Email sofia@agfunder.com to arrange a meeting.

Africa agrifoodtech investment report, 2023 New!

NEW REPORT: African agrifoodtech startups face headwinds as VC funding drops sharply from record-breaking 2022
​​By John Njiraini

Download the free report here​

Industry and funding news

Impact investor Astanor Ventures closes second agrifoodtech fund on €360m
By Jennifer Marston

Humble Growth closes $312m growth equity fund for disruptive CPG brands
By Elaine Watson

AeroFarms emerges from Ch. 11 with new CEO, focus on VA farm
By Jennifer Marston

Food companies aren’t all walking the talk on regenerative agriculture, says FAIRR investor network
By Elaine Watson

Hoxton Farms opens cultivated fat pilot facility to 'recreate experience meat eaters crave’ AgFunder portfolio co!
By Elaine Watson

Modern Synthesis and GANNI unveil ‘Bou Bag’ made by bacteria AgFunder portfolio co!
By Elaine Watson

Foodtech VC funding declined for 6th consecutive quarter, but deal count is up, says PitchBook
By Elaine Watson

The Week in AgriFoodTech: MycoWorks opens mycelium plant, Flagship et al pump $250m into Indigo Ag AgFunder portfolio co!
By Jennifer Marston and Elaine Watson

Data snapshot: Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt lead the way for agrifoodtech investment in Africa
By Jennifer Marston

Interviews, opinions and analysis

Meet the founders: Israel’s Fresh Start incubator on what makes a great pitch, red flags, and ‘coachable’ entrepreneurs
By Elaine Watson

From salt-tolerant wheat to Robusta coffee that tastes like Arabica, two climate-smart startups to watch AgFunder portfolio cos!
By Elaine Watson

Ancient grains need modern solutions: how sorghum and millets can nourish a climate-era world
By guest contributor Nate Blum

In case you missed it

Beyond Meat facing ‘existential threat’ says TD Cowen: ‘The core problem is the product’
By Elaine Watson

🎥 Impossible Foods CEO on marketing alt meat: ‘We insulted the very people we wanted to try our product, meat eaters’
By Elaine Watson

Should ag lenders and crop insurers offer ‘good soil discounts’ to farmers?
By Elaine Watson

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What we're reading

We thought we were saving the planet but we were planting a time bomb
New York Times (paywall)

‘Companies need to re-assess the way they communicate about their purchase of carbon credits’: EU agrees ban on ‘climate neutral’ claims by 2026
FoodNavigator

AI is giving the climate forecast for supply chains a makeover
Bloomberg

Supermarkets and shoppers must embrace vertical farming, our future depends on it
Forbes

Taste the ‘carbon’ difference: The problem with Sainsbury’s lower-carbon beef
Green Queen

The new colonialist food economy
The Nation

China expands farmland in bid to cut foreign food reliance
Financial Times (paywall)

AgFunder research

2023 Latam AgriFoodTech Investment Report
​AgFunder

2023 India AgriFoodTech Investment Report
AgFunder

2023 Global AgriFoodTech Investment Report
AgFunder

More AgFunder research

Jobs at AgFunder portfolio companies

Senior manager, farm operations and logistics
Nobell Foods (remote)

Greenhouse assistant manager, maintenance and facilities
Nobell Foods (south San Francisco, California)

Senior director, VP regulatory
Nobell Foods (south San Francisco, California)

Commercialization manager
FYTO (Petaluma, California)

Compliance associate
Retailo Technologies (Karachi, Pakistan)

See more jobs at AgFunder startups

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AgFunderNews

AgFunderNews reports on the evolution of the global food and agriculture system. By going beyond the headlines, we analyse the people, companies and technologies aiming to improve human and planetary health. Publishing daily news, our team of award-winning journalists delivers deeper insight on the growing foodtech, agtech and climate tech industries. A multimedia publication, AgFunderNews is a division of AgFunder Inc, one of the world’s most active agrifoodtech venture capital firms.

Read more from AgFunderNews

Greetings from London, where the AgFunderNews team has spent the week at the World Agri-Tech and Future Food-Tech summits delving into everything from the disconnect between regulatory and commercial timetables for novel foods and ag biologicals to ongoing questions over how to fund the transition to regenerative agriculture. As for cultivated meat, with private capital increasingly hard to come by, "There's a valley of death we're not going to cross as an industry without a massive infusion...

The big story this week: Are GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic an ‘existential threat’ to the food industry or an opportunity for some creative thinking? Elsewhere, Infinite Roots raised a cool $58m to scale its mycelium-based platform, AgFunder portco IGS netted $28.6m for vertical farming tech, Bluewhite raised $39m to expand its ag robotics operation, while Elo Life Systems bagged $20.5m to scale its plant breeding tech. We've also got some highlights from the recent cell ag innovation day at...

Can cultivated meat transition from a loss-making novelty served at a handful of high-end restaurants to a commercially viable alternative to animal ag? This week, Elaine Watson spoke with a raft of startups and investors in the space, while Jenn Marston caught up with the VP of automation at John Deere to talk about the last 10 years in agtech. It's also been a big week for Entobel, which opened Asia's largest insect protein plant, and Solar Foods, which bagged $8.8m to grow protein from...