Agri-food

Gresham House, one of London’s oldest asset managers, is betting big on vertical farming. Peter Bachmann, its head of sustainable infrastructure, believes this high-tech agriculture is at a “breakthrough point”.

Sustainable aquaculture investment fund Aqua-Spark has bought a 3.38% stake in Norwegian biotech company Hofseth Biocare ASA for €10mn.

Only 13% of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are registered for any digital service to boost production. The newly launched Digital Agri Hub is hoping to improve this statistic.

SilverStreet Capital, an investor in African agriculture, sees opportunities where others shy away from the high risks. “We are targeting the parts of the value chain that need fixing,” says founder Gary Vaughan-Smith.

The Healthy Food Systems Impact Fund II, a recently launched fund by Pymwymic, a cooperative of European impact investors, has made its first investment.

Dutch entrepreneurial development bank FMO and Rabobank have invested €10mn each in the world’s biggest public-private impact fund for smallholder farmers in emerging markets.

No need to reinvent the wheel – in *The Expert View* impact investing pros share their lessons learned. This week Mezuo Nwuneli on how to deal with risk when investing in West African agrifood businesses.

Future Food Fund, a €12mn Dutch specialist venture capital fund that provides early-stage capital for agriculture technology (agtech) startups, is considering launching a second fund next year.

A GPS cattle tracker, a harvester robot for white asparagus and a packaging-free online supermarket. These are some of the investments of the €12mn Future Food Fund (FFF), a Dutch seed capitalist that invests in innovative agricultural and food technologies.

AFEX Commodities Exchange’s mission to hand African smallholder farmers greater bargaining power took a leap forward in February 2021 when it launched the first Warehouse Receipt Backed Commercial Paper in Africa.