May 18, 2022

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

With a mission to invest and partner with innovators affecting real transformation on the world’s food ecosystem through biotech and digital technologies across food, agriculture, and animal health, Anterra is an international food and agriculture specialist venture capital firm that brings together the traditional notion of venture investment with an active approach to venture creation. 

Anterra, which has offices in Amsterdam and Boston, noted last year that while investor interest in the food and ag space is gaining traction, early-stage capital commitments in the space significantly lag behind those in other critical industries. For example, the investor cited in June 2021 that early-stage investment in the food and ag segment is less than half of that committed to pharma and biotech ($40 billion), and one-fifth of commitments in the software space ($100 billion).

However, Anterra’s mission lately has been shown to be more critical than ever, as the global pandemic and the war in Ukraine have demonstrated to investors around the world the undeniable need to radically change how food is produced, distributed, and consumed.

“The pandemic highlighted the fragility and adverse health impacts of our current food system: soaring prices, empty shelves in stores; the fact that unhealthy diets are a major risk factor for getting Covid; that the way we treat farm animals could trigger the next pandemic,” said Adam Anders, managing partner, Anterra Capital.

“Post our final closing, the devastating impact of the Ukraine War on the global food supply has increased the awareness among investors even further,” continued Anders. “This, plus our focus on deploying proven biotech and digital solutions to shake up the lagging food and ag sector, go a long way in explaining the higher than expected interest in our second fund.”

Higher than expected indeed, as Anterra announced the successful close of its second Global Food and Agriculture Technology Fund, oversubscribed at more than $260 million. 

All investors from Anterra’s first fund returned for Fund II, led by Rabo Investments and Eight Roads Ventures, who were joined by an influx of new international investors ranging from pension funds, to sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and tech entrepreneurs working in other sectors.

“A new crop of mainstream investors is ready to get involved,” said Anders. “Many already believed that the advances of the Green Revolution came at a hefty price. It gave us cheap fertilizer and powerful pesticides for growing plants; and growth hormones and antibiotics in animal production.”

“But its obsession with yield is also destroying ecosystems and our own health,” he explained. “The pandemic gave the final push. Investors realize they can help build a resilient and regenerative food system and make excellent returns at the same time.”

The pandemic changed nearly every aspect of our lives, often in ways we would have never anticipated. In many cases this results in an awakening of sorts, or the lifting of antipathy and the acceptance of the status quo.

One such outcome sparked by the pandemic was a palpable shift in views regarding the application of biotech – something that has traditionally been met with anything from reticence to outright public resistance – in food and agriculture, after the roll-out of mRNA vaccines made the world’s population first-hand witnesses to the positive power of biotech. 

“Growing public acceptance of biotech solutions and gene-editing thanks to mRNA-vaccines, is an important shift,” commented Anders. “Biotech advances will also play a critical role in making food and agriculture more resilient and less carbon intensive; from fighting and preventing infectious diseases that jump from animals to humans; to developing more sustainable crop health solutions.”

Approaching the sector through a technological lens, Anterra believes that biotech and digital solutions are the two key factors that will transform food and ag. As such, the investor seeks to identify entrepreneurs across the entire supply chain and its ancillary spaces such as ag fintech, crop science, animal health, human nutrition, and consumer tech. 

Diving even deeper, the VC also incubates companies itself, building five startup companies from scratch since 2018. However, Anders noted that technologies don’t have to all be “cutting edge” to make a lasting impact on the value chain.

“Technology-wise food and ag lags 20 years behind sectors like human health and banking, so you don’t necessarily need the latest, cutting-edge technology to transform it,” said Anders. “Our incubated companies focus on deploying biotech and digital solutions that are established elsewhere, but are new to food and ag. I can confidently say we are unique in that approach. It’s an advantage of operating in a slow-moving sector: you can innovate in a slightly de-risked way.”

Manifesting its expertise and mission into a tangible strategy, Anterra has built a diverse portfolio of startups that are leading the evolution of our food system, such as developers of next generation, low-impact  crop protection Enko and Vestaron (which just closed an $82 million Series C); animal and human health startups Invetx; Caribou Biosciences; and Animol; providers of field data and access to finance, price transparency, and direct distribution channels, ProducePay; and Agriconomie; and startups driven by consumer tech that are transforming how we buy and think about food, like LaFourche and Lollipop. 

~ 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 Unconventional Ag. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.

*The content put forth by Global AgInvesting News and its parent company HighQuest Partners is intended to be used and must be used for informational purposes only. All information or other material herein is not to be construed as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Global AgInvesting and HighQuest Partners are not a fiduciary in any manner, and the reader assumes the sole responsibility of evaluating the merits and risks associated with the use of any information or other content on this site.