November 17, 2021

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

Wheatsheaf Group, the investment unit of the UK’s Grosvenor Estate and international investor in food and agtech, announced a new partnership model that will carry the investor through its next phase of growth and evolution, and with it, a new identity as Grosvenor Food & AgTech.

Created nearly 10 years ago in 2012 by the Duke of Westminster’s Grosvenor Estate, Wheatsheaf Group was launched to diversify the Estate’s activities beyond real estate into a sector that offers the ability to manifest a meaningful, positive, and lasting effect on society.

The team is one of the largest and longest established in the sector, working to reshape and rethink how food is grown, produced, distributed, and consumed. Wheatsheaf explained that this is done through partnerships with like-minded people “to understand the complex interconnectedness of our agricultural ecosystem to manage its effects and enhance human health, our environment, and enable producers to thrive.”

This new business ideation will be led by current executive directors Anthony James, Katrin Burt, Monty Bayer, Peter Kristensen, and Stephan Dolezalek as managing partners, while Wheatsheaf CEO, Graham Ramsbottom, will be stepping down and leaving the organization at the end of 2021 following a period of transition.

Ramsbottom commented, “Joining Grosvenor in 2009 to identify and lead its diversification within a new area, I look back with a sense of pride on what we have achieved through our focus on Food and Agtech – a sector that has now become a favoured destination for climate focused global funding. Wheatsheaf is at the end of a chapter and about to embark on its next exciting phase of growth. It is a natural point for me to step aside and to pursue other opportunities in a sector that I am passionate about.”

“I must express Grosvenor’s deepest thanks to Graham Ramsbottom,” said Mark Preston. “He was instrumental in the creation of Wheatsheaf, identifying and steering a clear course and purpose for the organisation in its embryonic early years. From that solid foundation he then built a team that has the breadth of skills and experience to make Wheatsheaf one of the leading investors in the Food and AgTech sector, with a portfolio that is widely admired.”

Since its inception, Wheatsheaf has leveraged an investment approach that takes a far-sighted perspective with the goal of developing innovative business models. Building upon this foundation, the team has amassed an investment portfolio of more than 20 international companies harnessing the insights and power of technology to identify, develop, and scale up lasting solutions.

Just a few of Wheatsheaf’s prior investments that GAI News has highlighted in the past were:

• March 2015 – Belfast-based agri-IT firm FarmWizard
• December 2015 – Wheatsheaf led a $20 million Series B for indoor, aeroponic vertical farming startup AeroFarms.
• September 2016 – Wheatsheaf Group made a strategic investment in GrowSafe Systems, a Canadian agtech startup that improves livestock nutrition, health, and wellbeing.
• August 2108 – Wheatsheaf participated in a US$10.3 million Series A for Australian digital ag startup AgriWebb.
• February 2019 – Wheatsheaf acquired a 90 percent stake in Purfresh, a provider of specialized climate control technology designed to reduce food waste during shipping.

“By creating new and better places over the past 340 years, the Grosvenor name has become closely associated with world-class real estate,” said Preston. “The creation of Wheatsheaf, its growth over the past 10 years and now our plans for its next phase of development under a new partnership model bear a similar ambition – to help create a better food system, one that is good for human health, the environment and producers.”

– 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.