October 18, 2021

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

S2G Ventures is a pioneering investor, putting capital to work to counter threatened natural resources, urbanization, and vulnerable supply chains, and to shift the way the world approaches food. 

The multi-stage VC investor has a reach across the food, agriculture, ocean, and seafood verticals, and has invested in more than 60 of the leading and most innovative companies.

Since its launch in 2014 S2G has backed pioneering entrepreneurs and cutting-edge technologies aiming to improve the health and sustainability of our food system, and has deployed capital across the supply chain in innovators looking to create better outcomes for people and the planet, including Beyond Meat, Apeel Sciences, Greenlight Biosciences, MycoTechnology, sweetgreen, and many others.

However, the funding behind this mission hasn’t been considered a matter of public knowledge – until now, when the investor’s largest backer was made public as the 35 year-old heir to the Walmart empire. 

Intensely private, Walton has for years quietly worked behind the scenes to establish a new platform that he intends to be a vehicle for social change on a systemic level.

Now publicly launched under the name Builders Vision, the impact platform is dedicated to catalyzing philanthropy, investment, and advocacy to build a more healthy and humane planet. 

As part of the launch, S2G Ventures joined Builders Private Capital – the direct investment team for Lukas Walton. Together Builders Private Capital and S2G Ventures will work in partnership to invest in and support solutions for some of the world’s greatest challenges including climate change and human health.

To achieve this objective, Builders Vision will seed and scale initiatives in four impact areas: food and agriculture, climate and energy, oceans, and communities.

For years, S2G Ventures has focused on funding pioneering entrepreneurs and cutting-edge technologies that improve the health and sustainability of our food systems, from soil to shelf.

With a commitment to advance sustainable solutions for the climate, as well as the health of humans and the planet, it follows that S2G Ventures would turn its focus to the oceans – something that came to fruition last year when the company announced its $100 million oceans and seafood investment strategy – the Oceans and Seafood Fund. 

If the Earth’s oceans were equated to an economy – they would represent a “blue economy” consisting of jobs, products, and services valued at $2.5 trillion a year – ranking them as the seventh largest economy in the world, according to WRI.org.

However, as the effects of climate change intensify over time, the oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped in Earth’s climate system since the 1970s. This has resulted in extreme disruptions to weather systems and significant negative effects on the world’s marine ecosystems.

And although seafood accounts for a major category of our shared food system, providing protein for more than 3 billion people, S2G Ventures noted that it has been undercapitalized while capital committed to land-based fish farming systems have accelerated.

Carrying forward S2G Ventures legacy, the Oceans and Seafood Fund, (the largest of its kind in North America), takes a consumer-focused and data-driven systems investing approach, seeking out investments that will build marine ecosystem resilience, de-risk the ocean supply chain, maximize the value of natural resources, and support both animal and human health.

While remaining fully committed to its established mandates, as part of the broader Builders Private Capital, S2G Ventures is expanding its team and strategy to have even greater impact.

The Builders umbrella also includes:

Builders Initiative – the philanthropic team of Builders Vision that will support “the forefront of change”. This will include the Builders Initiative Foundation and additional impact-driven investments deployed to create a more healthy and humane planet. 

Builders Asset Management – the asset management team of Builders Vision – that will invest responsibly in order to ensure returns are reinvested in the Builders Vision mission. 

In its work, Builders Initiative has funded the non-profit Nature Conservancy, which is conducting R&D for the recovery of kelp, and is working to breed and reestablish starfish along the northern coast of California. And Builders Private Capital has backed Urchinomics – a startup that is working to control the invasive and destructive purple urchins destroying the kelp forests in the region by harvesting and raising them through “ranches” for the production of uni for sushi. 

“We are working on multiple properties in California because we realize that California is in a very critical situation,” Brian Tsuyoshi Takeda, CEO, Urchinomics, told Fast Company. 

As Builders Vision and S2G Ventures continue to collaborate and advance work such as this with their partners, and as the platform matures and expands, new investments and initiatives will serve to round out an impact portfolio designed for positive change.

– Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.