December 1, 2022

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

Spun off from Cargill’s Black River Asset Management in 2016, Proterra Investment Partners has offices in Minneapolis, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Sao Paulo, and London with $3.6 billion in food and ag AUM. Working out of the Shanghai and Singapore office, Tai Lin, managing director of subsidiary Proterra Asia, directs Proterra’s food sector investments across China and Southeast Asia.

“With regards to the activities of the Food Strategy, which is focused on meeting food demand, we see emerging Asia as the biggest, strongest driving force in the growth for food globally,” Lin told GAI News in a previous interview.

This view has been confirmed by the numbers – a joint report released last year by PwC, Rabobank, and Temasek found that Asian consumers are expected to double their spending on food, reaching $8 trillion by 2030, making it the largest food and beverage market in the world.

Furthermore, almost half of the 1 billion-person increase in global population between 2020-2030 will be in Asia, at which time, the continent will be home to 65 percent of the world’s middle class. 

Leveraging Proterra’s extensive network in the global food and agriculture sector gives the fund a strong strategic edge. Capitalizing on this position, the fund backs high-growth Asian food companies that capitalize on and benefit from the region’s middle class population growth and shifting patterns of food consumption, emphasizing fast-growing categories where supply chain, distribution, and consumer preferences are experiencing effectual change.

“In the context of rapidly growing and urbanizing populations in Asia, the demand for premium food products as well as the need to decarbonize diets and food supply chains is increasing at an extraordinary pace,” said Lin. “The Proterra Asia Food Strategy is well positioned to capitalize on the associated trends.”

Proterra Asia has deployed more than $1 billion across three funds, writing checks between $30-$50 million to back growth stage companies advancing the food sector across China and Southeast Asia.

Proterra Asia Food Fund 3 launched in May 2019, and closed on October 26 at over $200 million. This closing follows on the heels of Food Fund 2, which closed in 2105 at $700 million, and Food Fund 1, which closed in 2011 at $460 million. 

Over the years, the food and agribusiness investors garnered backing from global institutional investors including from European and Asian family offices, and the Development Bank of Japan (DBJ), which became the first Japanese investor to back a food-focused PE fund last September. 

Through this investment, DBJ stated at the time that it intended to not only stimulate activity in the food and agriculture industries, but to also seize on global trends and industry best practices in the food transition, contributing to the industry’s next phase of growth.

Through its Food Strategy, Proterra has invested in more than 20 companies active in the Asian food sector since 2010, creating value at the portfolio level, whether through expansion of sales and procurement channels, strategic M&A, and/or by incorporating best practices in corporate governance.

In 2020, Proterra Asia led a consortium that partnered with Eat Just – a leading food tech company creating healthier, more sustainable foods – investing up to $100 million to build and operate the largest plant-based protein production facility in Asia, and concurrently, to launch the subsidiary Eat Just Asia for the production of JUST Egg products. 

“Proterra is excited to announce this collaboration to form a strategic alliance with Eat Just for Asia; we would like to help consumers across Asia get better access to the excellent plant-based egg product by establishing a fully integrated supply chain within Eat Just Asia,” said Tai Lin at the time.

Some of the portfolio companies under Food Fund 3 include Oatside, a Singapore-based oat milk brand; No Ordinary Drinks, a China-based healthy beverage brand; Simple Love, a Chinese yogurt company; and Wuan Chuang, a premium Taiwan-based soy sauce maker.

~ Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor in chief 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.

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