Ceres Partners is a specialist investment manager focused exclusively on Food & Agriculture. According to the USDA, Food & Agriculture is an $800 bn sector of the economy representing approximately 5% of GDP. However, Food & Agriculture has been under invested for decades and even today there are only a small number of firms focused on the sector, resulting in less intense competition and less efficient markets.

Ceres manages two investment strategies: Farmland and Growth Equity.

Farmland delivers current income and capital appreciation with low volatility. Importantly, farmland has been a highly effective diversifier, with returns uncorrrelated with most asset classes. Ceres’ open-ended, commingled farmland vehicle, Ceres Farms LLC, was launched in December 2007. Today, Ceres Farms has $680,000,000 AUM and has delivered annualized net returns of 11% since inception. Ceres Farms has over 100,000 acres of farmland in 10 states.

Ceres Sustainable Food & Agriculture Fund II is targeting $75MM to invest growth equity in scalable agriculture businesses in North America. Fund I, which closed in 2017, has invested in four companies to date: Proximity Malt, a producer of locally-sourced malt in for the craft beer industry; Kampachi Farms, an open ocean aquaculture producer of high-value sustainable fin fish; Hop Head Farms, a leading independent grower, processor and marketer of specialty hops; and Sugarloaf Crush, a state-of-the-art custom crush winemaking facility for smaller, high-end vineyards.

www.cerespartners.com