A Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund likes what it sees from Canadian agricultural startups and has partnered with Farm Credit Canada to increase opportunities for them.
SVG Ventures has invested in agricultural technology around the world, including in Canada, and is expanding its accelerator program, Thrive, north of the border.
Chief executive officer and founder John Hartnett said young startups face challenges accessing customers and investment.
SVG was established about eight years ago and has helped about 60 companies through its program so far, including five Canadians.
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They include Milk Moovement, Spornado and StreamML, which were pitched during a live event on Sept. 24. It has partnerships with the University of Guelph and Olds College.
“We invest about $100,000 in each company as they come through the program and then we also help them in terms of mentorship,” he said in an interview. “The curriculum that we go through helps these young companies access funding, do their pitches, build out their business plans, build out their business models, etc.”
Last year two Canadian companies, Livestock Water Recycling from Calgary and VeriGrain from Saskatoon, were chosen from more than 500 companies in a Thrive pitch event.
Livestock Water Recycling was chosen to participate in the SVG program and won the overall event for an additional $250,000 and a pitch to about one billion people online.
The partnership with FCC will help launch the inaugural Thrive Canada specifically for Canadian startups.
The pitch event will likely be in December, Hartnett said, and FCC will be part of the judging. Other partners will be on board and the best of Canada will be chosen in January through a virtual event.
“Our intention is also to set up, establish our footprint in Canada and run our investments and accelerator within Canada as well,” he said.
The idea behind SVG was to connect investors in Silicon Valley with agriculture, where technology and innovation is constantly required. Hartnett said the two stakeholders didn’t talk, even though Silicon Valley is in the heart of the fresh food industry.
“We really focused on filling the ag tech ecosystem, which brings the farmers, the researchers, the scientists, the entrepreneurs, the investors together so we can address some of the key challenges that the industry is faced with,” Hartnett said.
SVG leverages the Forbes media platform to reach people around the world.
In San Francisco it works with Canada’s Global Affairs department to bring top Canadian companies to the accelerator program.
Hartnett said he is impressed with the quality of Canadian entrepreneurs. He said the world’s field to fork supply chain is an $8 trillion industry. Population growth and the exploding middle class are changing that chain, however, as people become more concerned about health, nutrition, sustainability and impact.
“The industry is faced with major challenges of climate change, trying to do more with less, trying to reduce waste in the supply chain, labour challenges… and obviously scarce resources, land and water,” Hartnett said. “How can you feed 2.5 billion more people when you’re already in a crisis situation? You can only do it by innovating. We have to do things smarter.”
