September 18, 2019

By Lynda Kiernan

Global leader in sustainable food chain investing, Paine Schwartz Partners has made a first investment through its recently launched Paine Schwartz Food Chain Fund V, backing Advanced Agrilytics, an agronomics service business with cutting-edge precision analytics capabilities. 

The undisclosed investment will be used by the company to strengthen its leadership team, and to expand its customer, agronomic, and data science teams with leading industry talent, as it approaches the opening of its new headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana. 

Founded in 2013 in Huntington, Indiana, the Advanced Agrilytics’ team of agronomists and scientists have multiple decades of experience in soil science, crop physiology, data science, and prescriptive application development. With this well-established expertise, the company  provides row crop farmers with independent precision farming advice, and helps farmers interpret agronomic data and to manage their input and production strategies for dramatically improved yields. 

“We pride ourselves at Advanced Agrilytics on our dedication to the science of agriculture; through better understanding key obstacles facing growers and continuing to provide innovation at the farm gate,” said Kess Berg, CEO, Advanced Agrilytics.

“Paine Schwartz’s unparalleled agribusiness experience and deep understanding of sustainable food chain investing make them the ideal partner as we move forward toward the future of farming.”

A First of Many

This investment is the first for Paine Schwartz through its recently launched Paine Schwartz Food Chain Fund V. Announced in May, this fund is targeting a funding an impressive goal of $1.2 billion.

Fund V concurrently announced a significant commitment of $50 million from the Rhode Island State Investment Commission, Providence, which manages $8.3 billion in assets with a 6 percent allocation to private equity as of April 30. 

With 20 years of experience, Paine Schwartz has evolved to focus its capital on investments exclusively in sustainable food chain opportunities. Working within a research-intensive investment framework, Paine Schwartz employs a primary research, thesis, and operationally-driven approach that when combined with the firm’s domain expertise and deep well of industry relationships has been able to unlock growth via control positions. 

Fund V’s predecessor, Fund IV, closed oversubscribed with $893 million in capital commitments in the final days of 2014. At the time, Kevin Schwartz, CEO and a founding Partner of Paine Schwartz, told GAI News, “The food and ag industry has the wind at its back. The demand for these types of products will grow as population increases and diets change. So when you look at it from that angle, it’s a huge industry…”

As the macros drive the potential for investment in the food and ag industry, the potential presented for investment in the agtech space also strengthen, and Advanced Agrilytics’ platform sets it apart among a crowded field of rivals, according to Paine Schwartz.

“We are pleased with this investment in Advanced Agrilytics through Fund V,” said Schwartz. “The Company’s differentiated platform and high-touch service offering have it positioned to capture growth opportunities by meeting the increasing demand by farmers to apply precision analytics to increase yields.”

“Together with Kess and the rest of the Advanced Agrilytics team, we look forward to driving growth and scaling the business by adding additional data scientists and agronomic professionals.”

– Lynda Kiernan is Editor with GAI Media and daily contributor to GAI News. If you would like to submit a contribution for consideration, please contact Ms. Kiernan at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.