March 28, 2016

Ryan Rakestraw is a principal at Monsanto Growth Ventures (MGV). With offices in San Francisco and St. Louis, MGV invests in a broad range of companies that can have a major impact on the future of agriculture. MGV is growth-stage agnostic, investing in companies from seed stage through IPO. Previously, Ryan was with Cultivation Capital, an early stage venture capital firm based in St. Louis. During this time Ryan founded the Yield Lab, an accelerator program focused on Agriculture. Earlier in his career, Ryan was a systems engineer with Northrop Grumman where he helped to design and implement military platforms ranging from undersea to space applications. Ryan has a bachelor’s of science in electrical engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, a master’s of science in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins, and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis.