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Why we invested in SIMULATE
Editor’s note: Earlier this year we launched our New Carnivore Fund to invest in the massive potential for alternative protein products. To learn more about our investment thesis for this space you can...
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Bioreactor breastmilk, farm tech, and (of course) Covid-19: AFN’s top 20...
By popular demand and given the unprecedented nature of the first six months of the year, AgFunder released its H1 2020 investment review last week. As might be expected, the half-year report showed...
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5 trends that shaped agrifoodtech in 2020
2020 has been a year like no other in living memory for the vast majority of us. The Covid-19 pandemic, which began in China at the tail end of last year and gradually engulfed to entire world by the...
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AFN’s last minute holiday gift ideas (of course they’re about food!)
In 2020, you get a pass for not thinking ahead on holiday gift-giving. If you’ve been so head-down focused on just getting to the end that you missed Hanukkah completely, and the Winter Solstice, and...
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AFN’s top 20 guest articles in 2020
As we count down the final few days until 2021, we on the AFN editorial team have been taking some time to look back at what has been a momentous year in agrifoodtech. Our coverage of this cutting-edge...
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Gates can create world’s biggest agrifoodtech testbed, but needs to win over...
Last month, US land investment magazine The Land Report published research indicating that Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda own the largest stock of private farmland in the US. About...
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Why AgFunder invested in Jüsto
Editor’s note: Rob Leclerc is founding partner, and Sofía Ramírez is adjunct partner, at AgFunder, which invested in Jüsto’s seed round last year. AgFunder is AFN’s parent company. This week Jüsto, a...
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Kicking off our new Clubhouse partnership by celebrating women innovators in...
On Monday evening, we launched our new Clubhouse partnership with Food+Tech Connect in the best way possible; by celebrating women innovators in food on International Women’s Day. We had over 50 women...
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Is this the fastest-growing vertical farming business in the world?
Indoor agriculture is competitive. While there is so much whitespace for vertical farms and high-tech greenhouses to grow and sell produce regionally, those that are VC-backed seem to have been...
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This year’s biggest agrifoodtech IPO will probably involve a company you’ve...
When it comes to companies going public, agrifood seems to be reaching its inflexion point. The SPAC craze continues, with everything from indoor farms to gluten-free biltong merging with listed...
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Conservis’ unusual exit to Rabobank-Telus JV shows management team’s mettle
“It takes time; a lot more time than people were prepared for…” Speaking about VC-backed farm management software company Conservis, founder Pat Christie hit the nail on the head when we chatted early...
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Don’t blame business for cultivated meat’s cell line shortage. Public funding...
This week, The Guardian‘s sister newspaper The Observer published an article on the issue of limited access to cell lines – one of the essential building blocks for the production of cell-cultured...
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AgFunder exit review: John Deere’s $250m acquisition of Bear Flag Robotics
Editor’s note: Bear Flag Robotics, an agtech startup focused on automation, has been acquired by John Deere for $250 million. Bear Flag Robotics was a portfolio company of agrifoodtech VC AgFunder,...
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Culling 150,000 healthy pigs shouldn’t ‘just happen’ in a functioning food...
Last week, the UK’s National Pig Association (NPA) warned that as many as 150,000 healthy pigs could be killed and disposed of amid a chronic shortage of slaughterhouse workers and heavy goods vehicle...
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Prince Charles’ ode to private markets at COP26 was a clarion call for agtech
The opening speeches of the World Leaders Summit at COP26 in Glasgow, the UK on Monday were an amalgam of emotional calls to the world to bring down greenhouse gas emissions and save the planet. Famed...
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COP26 produced a ‘yoyo of feelings’ about agrifood’s climate role
“It’s been a yoyo of feelings,” I overheard one delegate tell another in the Green Zone of COP26 in Glasgow last week. That was my experience too – and that of many I’ve spoken to about the UN climate...
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UPDATE: Bayer inks new digital ag data infrastructure deal with Microsoft:...
UPDATED: 19 November, 2021, 15:36pm GMT to add comments from a Microsoft spokesperson about data sources and revenue generation through the partnership. We’ve all seen those announcements before:...
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Bowery’s KKR-led $150m credit facility may hint at robust business model,...
Bowery secured a $150 million credit facility from leading global private equity firm and broke ground on two new farms in the Atlanta, Georgia and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas metro areas last week. The...
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Why AgFunder invested in Kula Bio
Editor’s Note: Rob Leclerc is a founding partner at AgFunder, AFN’s parent company that invested in biofertilizer startup Kula Bio’s seed round last year. In the wake of Kula Bio’s $50 million Series A...
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How significant is the Bayer-Microsoft deal for agtech? The response
Editor’s Note: This post is co-authored by AFN’s editor Louisa Burwood-Taylor alongside Mark Johnson, who recently led grain trading platform GrainBridge to acquisition and was cofounder of Descartes...
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