
Pontifax AgTech closes latest fund at $302m
Fund II is timely given “scarcity of sector-focused growth capital and challenges and opportunities created by Covid-19,” managing partner Phil Erlanger told AFN.
Fund II is timely given “scarcity of sector-focused growth capital and challenges and opportunities created by Covid-19,” managing partner Phil Erlanger told AFN.
The funding will enable the Indian startup to take its rapid soil testing kit and analytics services to the country’s 130 million smallholder farmers.
Minnesota’s Revol Greens has plans to build new greenhouse facilities in California and Texas – the latter of which could be the world’s largest to date.
London insect farming startup Entocycle will lead the project, which will aim to build a facility that rears black soldier flies by the millions.
The French startup – which farms mealworms to produce ingredients for fish feed, pet food, and crop fertilizers – claims it’s the biggest insect protein round ever.
Italy’s Valagro produces biostimulants and specialty nutrients for farming, as well as specialty ingredients for use in food, cosmetics, and animal feed.
The Hamburg-based startup has built an online marketplace for secondhand agricultural machinery, using AI-powered valuation and offering EU-wide warranties.
Kentucky’s AppHarvest will join the NASDAQ through a merger with special-purpose vehicle Novus Capital, while its new 60-acre facility prepares for launch.
Despite ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ drives, single use of petroleum-based plastic has grown 5x since 1980 – with a mere 5% recycled. Plastic pollution remains a problem in need of a solution.
Shiok Meats is the first ‘lab-grown seafood’ venture in the aquaculture-focused VC’s portfolio, Aqua-Spark co-founder Amy Novogratz told AFN.
Istanbul-based Tarfin offers access to extended payments for smallholder farmers, and creates pools of receivables for institutional investors as asset-backed securities.
The Dutch-Danish startup thinks that toxicity and growing pathogen resistance to chemical aqua-pesticides means that now’s the time to shine for biological alternatives.
The round was led by The Rise Fund – a unit of US private equity giant TPG Capital – and Swire Pacific, an arm of Hong Kong trading house Swire.
The agribusiness major claims it already has 750 farmers participating in 12 soil health and water quality programs on roughly 300,000 acres across North America.
The Danish startup runs what it calls “the smallest chewing gum factory in the world” – but with the new funding, that factory is set to get a little bigger.
Infarm says that by 2025 its operations will reach more than 5 million square feet to become the largest distributed vertical farming network in the world.
Regenerative ag may be a hot topic, but it won’t scale without consumer demand, says Wholesome Meats and Soilworks co-founder Lew Moorman.
BlackRock recently relaunched its BGF World Agriculture vehicle as the more broadly themed, sustainability-focused BGF Nutrition Fund.
The Canadian startup provides solar-powered, self-cleaning sensors that can keep track of livestock feed levels in real time.
The UK-Australian startup uses AI, data analytics, drones, and ecological expertise to restore carbon and biodiversity to degraded land.
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