Dive Brief:
- Venture capitalism and other major investments in the food and agricultural industries are becoming an increasingly popular avenue for inspiring innovation. This includes major agribusinesses as well as the same investors that backed Silicon Valley companies.
- According to Dow Jones VentureSource, venture-capital investments in these industries hit $486 million last year, an enormous 54% leap, The Wall Street Journal reported.
- The investments circle around cutting-edge technologies that aim to improve the way food is grown, such as precision agriculture and indoor farming, food safety, alternative foods, and farm robots.
Dive Insight:
In late 2012, Monsanto Co. created Monsanto Growth Ventures to seek out and employ methods and technologies that the company hadn't developed itself as well as determine opportunities for beneficial and profitable acquisitions. Syngenta AG has begun snapping up agricultural startups as well, such as raising the funds for AgriMetis LLC, which has devised a way to "to synthesize molecules that plants naturally produce to defend against pests," according to The Wall Street Journal.
Roger Royse, a Silicon Valley lawyer who founded an agricultural-technology conference, said, "Agriculture is the last frontier for a lot of different technologies," The Wall Street Journal reported.