Israel has quickly come to the fore of agtech innovation and investment. And after noticing the growing wave of capital flows and advancements within the sector, Tammy Mahn is leading the launch of the $40 – $50 million agtech fund, Harvest Ventures.
Formerly of Israel’s first venture capital firm, Evergreen Venture Partners and Pintango Venture Capital, Mahn decided to turn her attention to agricultural technology.
“After I saw more and more agtech deal flow and movements in the industry I thought that there’s got to be something here,” she told AgFunderNews. “There are a lot of shifts happening to make data more available to farmers and Israel appears to be leading a lot of innovation in technology generally. So this combination made agtech an interesting route for us to take.”
Israel has been a pioneer in agricultural technologies and research dating back to the 1920’s with the formation of the Agricultural Research Station of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, now called the Volcani Center, which was founded by Yitzhak Elazari Volcani, who is accepted by many to be the ‘founder of modern agriculture in Israel’. Over the decades, Israel has advanced through the Global Competitiveness Index to be ranked third for its innovative work, third for having the world’s best research institutions, and ninth for its availability of venture capital according to the Index’ latest report issued in September 2014.
Harvest Ventures is scheduled to begin fundraising in September, and will focus on the “digital agri space” – agricultural technologies being developed by Israeli companies that revolve around enterprise software, Internet of Things, and big data.
Believing that given sufficient financial backing Israel will be able to sustain and increase its position as an agtech leader, Mahn has already begun sourcing a pipeline of deals from various government-run programs, Israeli universities, technology conferences and forums conducted both in Israel and overseas.
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