An open letter as Plenty CEO
By Arama Kukutai Dear valued customers, team members and community: Firstly, thank you for welcoming me officially as Plenty’s new CEO! I look forward to this next phase of growth for the company. There is no denying our existing food supply is fragile, strained and unsustainable. Indoor agriculture has long promised a solution to the... Read More ▸
Farm2050: Coalition Names First Five Nutrient Technology Trial Startups
Top Investors and Industry Leaders Validate Promising Soil and Nutrient-Focused Innovations With Global Trials PALO ALTO, CA and Palmerston North, New Zealand – Finistere Ventures and Innovation Endeavors today revealed the first five companies selected for the Farm2050 Nutrient Technology Trialing Platform, a dual-hemisphere agritech testing and validation platform. The Farm2050 Nutrient Trialing Platform aims... Read More ▸
Hi Fidelity Genetics Announces Study Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Hi Fidelity Genetics Announces Study Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Peer-Reviewed Journal Details How to Dramatically Reduce Row Crop Emissions and Make Farm Management Practices More Sustainable DURHAM, N.C., June 21, 2021 – Hi Fidelity Genetics (HFG), a computational crop breeding company, announced today the publication of a peer-reviewed article titled, “Novel... Read More ▸
ZeaKal Unveils Breakthrough High-Oil Hemp Results
ZEAKAL’S NOVEL PHOTOSEED TRAIT BOOSTS HEMP BIOMASS OIL OUTPUT BY UP TO 50% TORONTO and SAN DIEGO – June 1, 2021 – RIV Capital Inc. (“RIV Capital” or the “Company”) (TSX: RIV, OTC: CNPOF) and Finistere Ventures portfolio company ZeaKal, Inc. (“ZeaKal”) announced that its PhotoSeed™ technology is believed to be the first plant trait... Read More ▸
Finistere Ventures 2020 Agrifood Tech Investment Review
Agrifood tech, defiant in face of pandemic, records breakout fundraising year. As COVID-19 reshaped the world, the agrifood tech investment community reacted quickly to the extreme uncertainty. The result was a record-shattering investment sum of $22.3 billion committed to the space in aggregate in 2020—momentum that has carried into this year. The resilience of investment... Read More ▸
Feeding 10 billion without increasing greenhouse gas emissions—the technology investment opportunity
Agriculture and food production are the single largest contributors to human green house gas emissions. I the latest of our blog series in partnership with Pitchbook Data, Finistere Ventures Managing Partner Arama Kukutai and Senior Advisor Kyle Datta opine on the role of agtech within the efforts to reduce the impact of food production on... Read More ▸
Finistere Ventures: The next wave of evolution in crop protection & input management
In 2017, Finistere Ventures and PitchBook partnered to build and share the most comprehensive data set on agtech investment in the industry. We are extremely proud of how this partnership has grown and developed over the years, spawning three comprehensive reports covering global, regional, stage and sector-based agtech investment trends/key developments, and garnering collaborations from... Read More ▸
Spencer Maughan Co-authors Australian AgTech Landscape Report for University of Sydney
Finistere partner Spencer Maughan worked closely with the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney to author a report on the opportunities and challenges in the Australian AgTech sector. Key Findings: Australia’s AgTech investment market is small, at an early stage and not keeping pace with global peers A breadth of AgTech segments... Read More ▸
The Emergence of Global Agritech Hotspots – New Zealand
New Zealand has long been a major agricultural producer, often lampooned by visitors in the past for having more sheep than people. Today, it is dairy and horticulture that dominate ag and food exports in excess of US$37 billion. Moving up the ranks, technology has become the third most important export sector by GDP value... Read More ▸
Agtech Valuations – A New Paradigm?
Activity in the Agtech sector has skyrocketed over the last five years—marking its arrival as an important piece of the venture capital ecosystem. And as with any important milestone, understanding how we got to where we are today and the trends shaping where we are headed in the years to come is absolutely critical. We... Read More ▸
