November 22, 2016

Israel’s Copia Agro & Food, a fund launched two years ago with a focus on bringing agricultural and food technologies born of the country’s research institutes to commercialization, is now raising $50 million to extend its investment scope to include ag technologies that mitigate climate change and food shortages.

Privately owned and co-managed by Ohad Zuckerman, the former CEO of Zeraim Gedera an Eyal Cohen, Copia Agro & Food works in cooperation with ag and food tech R&D projects, offering funding and hands-on management to develop and grow technologies designed to improve existing supply chains. Once established, Copia Agro & Food then pairs each of its portfolio projects with compatible industrial partners who then work to market the technology.

“Copia’s vision is to further the rich tradition of Israeli agricultural and food tech R&D and bridge the gap between the need for innovative sustainable solutions in the global agricultural and food sectors and scientific-technological breakthroughs,” Zuckerman told the Times of Israel. “Our hands-on involvement from research to commercialization, based on proven processes we developed during our careers, results in smooth cooperation between academia and industry, something in which very few have succeeded.”

Israel at the Fore

In 2013, investments in agtech reached $860 million, but by 2015 global investments in agtech totaled $4.6 billion and continue growing. And at the forefront of this push for a technological revolution in the farming and food space is Israel.

“Israel is uniquely positioned as a source of agtech innovation, with more than 300 research groups and a strong culture of multidisciplinary problem solving,” Nitza Kardish, Chief Executive Officer of Trendlines AgTech shared in a recent GAI News piece. “Israel, being a small area geographically, with a scarcity of agricultural and natural resources, pioneered numerous solutions to make the desert bloom. That’s what makes Israel the ideal place to learn about and embrace new agtech ideas and technologies that will help the world “do more with less” in the coming decades.”

A Promising Portfolio

Copia Agro & Food currently has six projects in its portfolio that it has established in partnership with Israel’s Agricultural Research Organization (Volcani Center) according to its website.  Existing projects include the discovery of a new Bacterium that is highly effective against phloem pathogens, the discovery of the SPV gene in pants that accelerates stoma closure, saving 20 percent more water, producing earlier fruit sets, enhanced yields, and resistance to abiotic conditions, the discovery of a new bio-nematicide that fights Root-Know nematode, a new bio-stimulant that promotes early growth and improves plant root systems for better yields, the discovery of a method of increasing the activity of sugar metabolizing enzymes in plants that results in increased growth rates, biomass, and yields, and the discovery of a endophytic fungus that has led to the development of both pre and post-harvest solutions.

The fund reportedly has three additional technologies in its pipeline at this time, according to the Times of Israel.

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Lynda Kiernan