CASHMERE, WA - April 6, 2023

Beta Hatch, a cleantech startup converting food waste into sustainable protein, today announced two key additions to its team to support its expansion strategy fueled by their current Series B fundraise. Following early years of scaling and completion of key R&D milestones, including the 2021 publication of the mealworm genome, its flagship mealworm hatchery is now the largest facility of its kind in North America. Opened officially in 2022, the new facility secured the company’s place among the major players of the emerging insect protein industry. Veteran operations expert, Phil Kassel, has joined as Chief Operating Officer. At the same time, they welcome Chuck Warta, formerly President of Cargill Health and Nutrition and President of Cargill Premix and Nutrition to their board.

Kassel brings over 20 years of experience, serving companies including ConAgra, Perdue, and Rembrandt Enterprises. Phil has led these organizations in building continuous improvement programs, management operating systems & championed best practices across both food processing and animal production. “I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to serve alongside such a talented team at Beta Hatch and to bring my skills, experience, and passion for organizational & operational excellence to build a more sustainable food system”.

As a startup disrupting both food waste and ag inputs, day-to-day operations can sometimes take a backseat to the exciting technology development required for scale. While Beta Hatch’s team already boasts PhDs in entomology, genetics and engineering, “bringing on a COO with Phil’s expertise and experience at this stage will allow us to translate our innovations directly to efficiencies on the production floor. We know how important operational execution is to the success of our business, which is laser focused on hitting profitability as soon as possible”, said Virginia Emery, Founder & CEO, of her decision to make this hire now.

Beta Hatch has also added Chuck Warta, former Cargill Vice President and current Operating Partner at Lewis & Clark AgriFood to its arsenal of experts at the board level. “I’m very excited to be helping Beta Hatch reach its commercial potential of transforming food waste into high value protein and meaningfully reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the process”, said Chuck. Emery added, “We are grateful to have his expert guidance and have already started putting his insights into practice. I’m thrilled to welcome these industry leaders to our team”.

WOODBRIDGE, CT - January 31, 2023

P2 Science Inc., a leading green chemistry company, today announced the close of a funding round led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood. Lewis & Clark was joined in the round by existing investors Heritage Group Ventures, Chanel, Elm Street Ventures, and SaferMade. Prior investors in the Company also include BASF Venture Capital, Connecticut Innovations, Advantage Capital, and others.

The primary use of proceeds from this round will be to expand sales and production of Citropol, the Company’s flagship product platform. Through a proprietary process called Process Intensified Continuous Etherification (“PICE”), P2 transforms renewable forest-derived feedstocks into high-performance ingredients for use in a variety of personal care, cosmetics, and beauty products. Citropols exceed the performance of traditional emollients, including silicones, and are easy to formulate with, while safe for human health and the environment. In 2022, P2 won five industry awards, including the Innovation Best Breakthrough Supplier Award from BeautyMatter, one of the most trusted voices in beauty. In January 2023, Unilever’s haircare brand, Living Proof, launched three new products built on P2’s ingredients.

“We’ve built a new patented, market-leading ingredient platform, that allows customers to build incredibly high-performance products which also satisfy consumer demands, regulatory requirements, and internal sustainability goals” said Neil Burns, CEO of P2 Science. “There is nothing in the market today like the Citropols. We now have 22 patented Citropol products that are used in every product category across personal care and beauty. This new round of financing will allow us to supercharge production and accelerate our global sales pipeline.”

In addition to Citropol, the Company has developed other proprietary products and chemistries for use across industries, such as flavor and fragrance, specialty materials, and more. A process that has also garnered particular interest is P2’s Process Intensified Ozonolysis (“PIOz”), which has a much smaller footprint, is more efficient, and more scalable than traditional ozonolysis. In May 2020, the Company announced a Joint Development Agreement with Archer Daniels Midland to commercialize renewable plant-based products across high-value markets, such as nylons, polyesters, lubricants and agrochemicals, utilizing PIOz.

“P2 is one of the very few successful sustainable chemistry platform companies” said Chuck Warta, Operating Partner with Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “Consumers and companies across industries are looking for highly functional, new, sustainable alternatives. Many in the personal care and beauty space are now turning to P2 for innovation. We are excited to partner with the P2 team and existing investors to grow a world-leading green chemistry company, deeply rooted in technology, with a portfolio of sustainable, high-value, and high-performance products.” As part of this financing, Chuck Warta has joined P2’s Board of Directors.

Stifel acted as an advisor and placement agent to the Company for this transaction.

SPRINGFIELD, TN - November 30, 2022

Stony Creek Colors, a Springfield, Tennessee-based manufacturer of natural indigo dye, has closed a $4.8 million Series B2 funding round co-led by the company’s long-standing partners, Lewis & Clark AgriFood and Levi Strauss & Co. Stony Creek Colors will use the capital to further develop its farming infrastructure and the dye extraction process to bring regenerative solutions to farmers and the textile industry.

Stony Creek Colors remains the only industrial scale manufacturer globally of 100% bio-based indigo, as certified by the USDA BioPreferred Program. Its vertically-integrated model allows for full traceability–down to the farm level–that brands and consumers trust. The funding will allow Stony Creek Colors to further refine its innovations, developed and field-proven over the past two years, as it advances toward scale.

“Stony Creek Colors was founded on the idea of harnessing naturally occurring chemicals in plants, to solve fashion industry challenges while giving farmers a profitable regenerative rotational crop.” said Sarah Bellos, Founder and CEO of Stony Creek Colors. “Our past collaboration with Levi Strauss & Co. as a customer allowed us to bring important denim supply chain innovations, such as IndiGold®, to life. This equity round initiates our next phase of long-term growth.

Since its inception, the company has successfully grown, harvested, and processed its proprietary indigo varieties on over 500 acres of farmland through its repeatable and expandable farmer production model in Tennessee, Kentucky and Florida. The company’s natural indigo process fixes nitrogen and captures more carbon than it uses, enabling environmental improvements for the farms where the crops are grown. Farmers planning to break up pest cycles or boost soil fertility with “cover crops” can rotate their farmland with Stony Creek Colors’ tropical indigo, which simultaneously provides them with viable revenue per acre and meets important regenerative agriculture goals.

“Stony Creek’s 2021 investment round allowed for the expansion of its production into a more tropical region where its improved plant genetics are well suited. With this current investment round, the company is poised to reach a greater scale in agricultural production and processing to meet growing demand for clean colors in the textile industry.” says Tim Hassler, Managing Director at Lewis & Clark AgriFood.

In addition to agriculture supply chain integrations, Stony Creek Colors is known for its innovations in new dye applications and customer point-of-use for this natural chemistry. Earlier this year, Stony Creek Colors publicly launched IndiGold®, the first plant-derived, pre-reduced indigo for denim mills, with global specialty chemicals leader Archroma. This product delivers on a long sought-after commercial drop-in solution for industrial denim production.

This investment for jeanswear company Levi Strauss and Co., headquartered in San Francisco, comes five years after an initial collaboration with Stony Creek Colors. Stony Creek Colors’ plant-based dyes were piloted as part of the Levi Strauss & Co. Wellthread® collection, a living R&D lab that addresses design and manufacturing challenges in order to create a more sustainable future through innovative products.

“Our work with Stony Creek on the Levi’s® brand and our Wellthread® collections has shown the potential of plant-based dyes,” said Paul Dillinger, Levi Strauss & Co. Head of Global Product Innovation. “We’re excited to get more involved with the company by supporting its efforts to bring plant-based dyeing alternatives to market at scale.”

Stony Creek Colors’ vertically-integrated technology eliminates the major historical inefficiencies in plant-based indigo production to allow for a high-purity dye suitable for its industrial denim mill customers, while demonstrating a soil health enriching and climate positive chemical that fits well into farmers’ annual crop rotations. Today, Stony Creek is increasing accessibility of renewable color chemistries as demand for plant-based innovations rise in the fashion and textile markets.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA - October 25, 2022

AgroSpheres, a leader in developing the next generation of environmentally friendly crop health products, announced today that it had raised $22 million in a Series B financing round led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood and Ospraie Ag Science. Bidra Innovation Ventures and its existing investor, Cavallo Ventures, participated in the financing round. This funding will be used to accelerate product commercialization, expand manufacturing capacity, and seed broader applications of the AgroSpheres AgriCell platform technology.

“In this unprecedented bear market, food security, environmental footprint, and supply chain resilience are of paramount importance,” said Payam Pourtaheri, Founder and CEO of AgroSpheres. “We are thankful for the support from our partners at Lewis & Clark, OAS, Bidra, and Cavallo, as we take significant strides towards our vision of a future built by nature’s technologies and bring our biobased technologies to partners globally.”

AgroSpheres’ biomanufacturing platform has enabled cost-effective manufacturing and successful field application of novel biological modalities. The unprecedented field success of foliar-applied AgriCell-RNAi technologies has garnered significant industry interest. The company directly addresses the three key bottlenecks that biologicals face today: cost, performance, and stability. Following AgroSpheres’ open technology demonstration day, Robb Fraley, Ph.D., known by many as the father of agriculture biotechnology, endorsed the technology as the one that will deliver on the unfulfilled promise of RNAi in Agriculture.

“The manufacturing expansion will allow us to deliver on the increasing demand for shelf-stable RNA and supply high-quality RNA at the lowest market price to partners in industry, in academia, and at the farm gate,” said Ameer Shakeel, Founder and CTO of AgroSpheres.

Manufacturing, biorationals, and Formulation-as-a-Service (FaaS) are the three pillars of AgroSpheres. The biorational division is spearheading the first commercial launch in Agriculture of AgroSpheres’ biodegradable encapsulation technology applied to volatile organic small molecules. In partnership with distribution, the product portfolio comprises AgriCell-enabled dose reduction and enhanced performance botanical inputs for crop health. The FaaS division holds major strategic collaborations between AgroSpheres and key AgBiotech companies, aimed at enabling novel biological modalities and microplastic or solvent replacement from existing formulations. The company’s three pillars work collectively to achieve AgroSpheres’ mission of providing farmers with reliable and affordable biobased solutions worldwide.

​”AgroSpheres’ breakthrough technology is best in class, backed by verifiable evidence. The results speak for themselves,” said Amar Singh, President, BIDRA Innovation Ventures. “Fall armyworm in Africa is a critical pest impacting millions of lives. We are particularly interested in how AgroSpheres’ technology can be used for Faw, especially considering resistance and toxicology issues with some of the incumbent chemistries today.”

“We are extremely impressed by the AgroSpheres’ founders and the cutting-edge biological manufacturing and delivery platform they have developed,” said Larry Page, Ph.D., Managing Director, Lewis and Clark AgriFood. “As longtime AgTech investors, we are aware of the challenges in bringing effective bio-based solutions to growers. AgroSpheres has the biomanufacturing capability and consistent, year-to-year field trial results validated by third parties across the globe to be an industry-changing company for the years to come.”

As part of Series B, Larry Page has joined AgroSpheres Board of Directors.

ST. LOUIS, MO - June 7, 2022

Lewis & Clark AgriFood, a St. Louis based food and agriculture focused investment firm, today announced the addition of a new Operating Partner, Chuck Warta, to its team.

Before joining Lewis & Clark, Mr. Warta spent over 30 years cultivating the growth and acquisition of multiple business units at Cargill, a leading worldwide food, agriculture and animal nutrition company, most recently as the President of Cargill Health Technologies. Mr. Warta also served on the investment board of Cargill’s Venture Capital team.

“We’re very excited to welcome Chuck to our investment team,” said David Taiclet, General Partner and Managing Director of Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “His venture investing background, leadership, and extensive knowledge of the animal nutrition and food technology industries will prove valuable to the investment team during deal diligence, as well as to our portfolio companies post-investment.”

For additional information, visit Lewis & Clark AgriFood.

PEORIA, IL - April 12, 2022

Natural Fiber Welding, Inc. (NFW) today announced that they have closed an $85 million funding round to scale production of high-performance, all-natural, circular materials products coming to market with a wide array of global brand partners. Evolution VC Partners led the round, with participation by Tattarang, Lewis & Clark AgriFood, Collaborative Fund, AiiM Partners, Engine No.1, Raga Partners, Tidal Impact, Scrum Ventures, and Gaingels. Return investors include BMW i Ventures, Ralph Lauren Corporation, Advantage Capital, and Central Illinois Angels.

Founded in 2015, NFW is a material innovation company providing the global footwear, fashion, accessories, and automotive industries with new material platforms to create low carbon, all natural, bio-neutral products. NFW engineers and manufactures: CLARUS®, a family of high-performance, all-natural textiles; and MIRUM®, the only next-generation, zero-plastic complement to leather. NFW’s global customer base includes leading brands who are aiming to provide their consumers with beautiful, high-performance petrochemical-free materials.

NFW is using the Series B funding to continue scaling the CLARUS® and MIRUM® materials platforms in order to meet global demand. The Peoria-based company is also extending its product offerings to molded composite materials to enable and encourage global brand partners to design unprecedented, comprehensively circular products.

“We envision a world that doesn’t rely on plastic, where abundant natural materials enable people and the planet to thrive together,” said Luke Haverhals, CEO and founder of Natural Fiber Welding. “We’re here to leave the world better than we found it and we look forward to working with our brand partners to build a comprehensively circular coalition for the planet.”

MIRUM® is a categorically unique, all-natural material engineered for the footwear, fashion, automotive, and accessories markets. MIRUM®’s customizability means it can look like anything from leather to carbon fiber, making it a high-performance solution for designers and brands looking to shrink their footprint and expand their creative palettes. Global brands including Alexander McQueen (MCQ), Pangaia, Bellroy, H&M, and Camper have adopted MIRUM® and are in market.

CLARUS® is a family of performance fabrics made from recycled and/or virgin natural fibers, which do not shed toxic microplastics. Imbuing natural fibers with new levels of performance closes critical gaps in the circular economy for the textile industry. NFW manufactures CLARUS® materials with closed-loop green chemistry that enables new efficiencies while delivering unrivaled performance. This year, Ralph Lauren used the platform to launch a first-to-market product innovation, the RLX CLARUS® Polo Shirt, exclusively at the 2022 Australian Open Tennis Tournament. Chaco, a Wolverine Worldwide brand, is in market with recycled cotton CLARUS® shoe uppers that displace synthetic uppers.

“The world has become allergic to plastics, which have permeated every aspect of our lives, and we need to reverse this trend,” said Gregg Smith, founder of Evolution VC Partners. “NFW has proven product-market fit with disruptive high-performance, all-natural materials. The next generation of consumers will pressure every industry—from automotive to apparel and furniture—to eliminate petrochemical usage, and NFW’s advanced materials solve those problems.”

NFW’s transformational work received two major awards in recent weeks. Fast Company listed NFW as a World’s Most Innovative Company, and NFW won Conservation X Labs’ Microfiber Innovation Challenge for their ability to reduce and prevent microfiber pollution.

“In our 24/7 mission to help industry wean us all from toxic and indestructible plastic, we meet a lot of well intended innovators who are not actually fixing the root cause of the plastic crisis, but giving polluters a fig leaf bandaid,” said Sian Sutherland, co-founder of ‘A Plastic Planet.’ “So you can imagine how excited we were to meet Dr. Luke Haverhals of NFW and learn of their totally radical imagining of how we create materials of the future. Dr. Haverhals simplifies this revolution with characteristic humility but from our global viewpoint, NFW will be the pioneers of an extraordinary rethink in how we take, make and waste; creating a new language of materials, nutrients that remain nutrients throughout their entire lifecycles; materials that nature freely gives, and happily takes back. This is just the beginning but already NFW is scaling fast, soon to be replacing toxic synthetic materials in the millions of tonnes. May others follow fast in these new tracks on a very different path.”

To learn more about Natural Fiber Welding, please visit: https://naturalfiberwelding.com/.

SEATTLE, WA - March 30, 2022

Seattle-based protein design company Arzeda has raised a $33 million Series B round.

The round, announced Wednesday, will go toward advancing the company’s products and helping its products reach the market, the company said in a release. According to Arzeda, the company is already “working with a number of global players” making items like better detergents and sustainable food ingredients.

“Through key partnerships with leading companies such as Unilever and BP, we have achieved significant milestones in developing our portfolio of products,” Alexandre Zanghellini, CEO of Arzeda, said in a news release. “With this funding, we will move our existing portfolio towards commercialization and increase our technology platform’s ability to further drive our mission of designing and manufacturing new proteins.”

Arzeda has seven open roles listed on its website, including roles in engineering, testing and research.

Arzeda was founded in 2008. The company designs proteins that don’t exist in nature, and its technology has applications in agriculture, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, according to Arzeda. The company raised a $15.2 million Series A round in 2017, at which time Arzeda said it had already developed proteins for DuPont and Mitsubishi Chemical.

Conti Ventures led the Series B round, while Lewis & Clark Agrifood, Bunge Ventures, Circulate Capital, OS Fund, Casdin Capital, UMI and Bioeconomy Capital all participated. Conti Ventures’ portfolio includes the plant-based meat company Impossible Foods and the lab-grown meat company Upside Foods, formerly Memphis Meats.

“We see tremendous opportunity to leverage Arzeda’s leading technology, which combines biology with cloud computing and AI, to bring impactful novel enzymes to market across a number of industries,” Brian Loeb from Conti Ventures said in a news release. “At Conti Ventures we are looking to drive forward cutting-edge technology that will define the future of food and agriculture. We are impressed with Arzeda’s existing enzyme portfolio and its commercial potential.”

SEATTLE, WA - March 19, 2022

IUNU today announced it has raised an oversubscribed $24 million Series B round of financing led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood.

IUNU today announced it has raised an oversubscribed $24 million Series B round of financing led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood. Existing investors S2G Ventures, Ceres Partners, and Astanor Ventures also participated. This funding will be used to accelerate the company’s growth plans, specifically around global sales expansion and new product introductions.

IUNU is developing the future of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) with a suite of solutions designed to bring data to the forefront of decision making. Founded in 2013, IUNU technology powers some of the world’s largest CEA operations. The company works with leading companies across the ecosystem, including some of the largest greenhouses and vertical farming companies such as Pure Green Farms, Hollandia Produce, CubicFarm Systems Corp. (TSX: CUB), the Red Hat Co-operative, Jamco Growers, and Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) Limited.

The company first launched in the leafy greens market, and now has more than 25% market share in North America and 74% of the top leafy greens greenhouse growers in North America run on IUNU’s LUNA Platform. Growers using LUNA products are increasing revenue and yield, decreasing labor costs, and seeing massive improvements to the quality of their crops by detecting and remediating issues earlier than ever. In addition to leafy greens, the company works with growers in the cannabis, floriculture, and vine markets.

IUNU has seen an explosion of growth in recent months, expanding its team by 50% in the past six months in response to market demand for its solutions. With hundreds of robots already deployed capturing images in commercial operations and over 500 more scheduled for deployment this year, IUNU has deployed more robots than any other company in the industry. In addition to its computer vision and artificial intelligence system, LUNA AI, every 5 minutes, a batch of crops is harvested in LUNA CMP, the company’s production and workforce management software. Together, the company has developed the largest production dataset in the industry – this in turn brings the most granular actionable alerts and information to customer hands.

“IUNU has an unmatchable stack of comprehensive product offerings that have been built and refined since 2013 making them the technology of choice for greenhouse and vertical farming operations,” said Suhas Narayanaswamy, Principal at Lewis and Clark AgriFood. “We are thrilled to be part of a company that is enabling the world’s largest CEA companies to be more efficient and ultimately enable consumers to access better quality fresh produce.”

“Greenhouse and vertical farming solve critical issues around food security, food safety and scarcity. IUNU’s technology brings incredible efficiency gains to indoor farming and is providing the foundation for data-driven indoor growing operations going forward,” said Cristina Rohr, Managing Director at S2G Ventures.

The CEA market is experiencing unprecedented growth right now. To address this growth, the company has recently completed two acquisitions of leading companies in the industry: Artemis and CropWalk, and completed a brand refresh. IUNU is the market leader in providing proven and trusted technologies to CEA growers and this latest round of funding will be used to continue expanding its market presence.

“This round of investment reflects the confidence institutional investors have in us. The conversation around autonomous growing has accelerated in the past year, and we’re proud to be leading the way on this front. We couldn’t be more excited to add Lewis and Clark as a partner and to have our existing investors continue growing with us,” said Adam Greenberg, CEO of IUNU.

“The CEA market has finally come to a point of proven expansion and we’re honored to be trusted by commercial operators who run their businesses on the LUNA Platform. This investment will be used to continue fueling our growth as we become the largest advanced technology company in the CEA industry,” said Allison Kopf, Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Data Products at IUNU.

As part of the Series B, Suhas Narayanaswamy, Principal at Lewis and Clark AgriFood has joined the IUNU Board of Directors.

BOSTON, MA - February 2, 2022

Environmental Impact Acquisition Corporation (NASDAQ: ENVI), a publicly-traded special purpose acquisition company, announced today that its business combination with Greenlight Biosciences was approved in a shareholder vote held yesterday, with 80.7% of shareholders participating in the vote and 78.6% voting in favor of the combination.

Subject to the satisfaction or waiver of the other customary closing conditions, Environmental Impact Acquisition Corp. anticipates closing the business combination today. In connection with the closing, the company will change its name to GreenLight Biosciences Holdings, public-benefit corporation, and the combined company’s shares of Class A common stock and public warrants are expected to trade on the Nasdaq exchange beginning on February 3, 2022, under the ticker symbols “GRNA” and “GRNA.WS,” respectively.

“Today marks an important milestone, and I am thrilled to work with our teams as we develop new applications for our RNA platform,” said Andrey Zarur, CEO of GreenLight.

Investors include Serum Life Sciences, Fall Line Capital, Viceroy Capital, S2G Ventures, Cormorant Asset Management, Morningside Venture Investments, Hudson Bay Capital, BNP Paribas Ecosystem Restoration Fund, The Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust, Continental Grain Company, Pura Vida Investments LLC, Xeraya Capital, and MLS Fund II/Spruce.

Canaccord Genuity served as financial advisor and Latham & Watkins LLP served as legal advisor to Environmental Impact Acquisition Corp. SVB Leerink and Credit Suisse served as financial and capital markets advisors to GreenLight and co-placement agents on the PIPE transaction. Foley Hoag LLP is served as legal advisor to GreenLight.

KITCHENER, ON - December 16, 2021

Dennis Organ has recently joined BinSentry Inc. – a Kitchener, Ontario-based agricultural technology start-up – as the Chair of the Board of Directors.

Dennis Organ is a food executive who has spent the majority of his career in executive leadership positions at Smithfield Foods Inc., most recently as Chief Executive Officer. Having headed up the global operations of the world’s largest pork processor, his vast experience in supply chain management and optimization makes him a significant contributor to the BinSentry team who just launched their innovative BinSentry Horizon and BinSentry Sensus product offerings, designed to enable increased feed ordering automation.

“This is a huge vote of confidence in what BinSentry is building,” says BinSentry CEO and Co-Founder Randall Schwartzentruber. “Dennis’ wealth of experience and depth of industry expertise will be a huge asset to BinSentry moving forward. His belief in our mission to automate the feed supply chain equips BinSentry with another strong advocate as we strive to build the “Mill of the Future,” enabling feed mills, livestock producers, and nutritionists to operate more sustainably, efficiently, and profitably via the integration of emerging technologies.”

Leaning on his thorough understanding of the agricultural supply chain, Dennis will help guide BinSentry in their mission to develop new innovative software applications to facilitate their goal of creating the “Mill of the Future.” “We’re thrilled to have Dennis joining the company at this very pivotal and exciting time in BinSentry’s journey,” Randall says. “With the recent launch of BinSentry Horizon – our Feed Ordering Automation Software, and BinSentry Sensus – our advanced hardware bin monitoring solution, Dennis’ addition to the team will provide invaluable industry insight as we help our partners successfully leverage the benefits of sensor technology, better data and AI on the path towards greater efficiency.”

Since partnering with Cargill in 2020, BinSentry has been able to expand the distribution of its sensor technology and feed ordering software across the United States, Mexico, and into the South American, Asian, and European markets. Dennis’ expertise in supply chain optimization will be instrumental in further strengthening Cargill and BinSentry’s mutual efforts within these new markets.

“A core tenet of operational excellence is gaining visibility to the data that matters. What attracted me to BinSentry was the fact that they’re bringing core optimization technology to the feed supply chain,” Dennis says. “It’s rare that you get the opportunity to be a part of an organization that is introducing proven automation and optimization capabilities to an industry that largely operates without the benefit of modern technology. With BinSentry’s leading-edge technology, software development capabilities, and passion for performance, we will help feed the world and reduce the impact on the climate as we do so.”

ST. LOUIS, MO - November 16, 2021

Plastomics, a leading developer of row crop biotech trait technology, announced it has secured $7.1 million for its Series A round of funding, led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood, with participation from St. Louis based firms BioGenerator, the Yield Lab, and iSelect in addition to Fulcrum Global Capital. BioGenerator, iSelect, and the Yield Lab are all existing investors.

Plastomics is developing a novel trait delivery technology that places beneficial traits in the chloroplast of plant cells rather than the nucleus. This can help crops, including corn and soybeans, better withstand the pressure of insects, diseases and weeds while delivering higher yields.

“Biotechnology companies continue to develop multi-trait stacks for their most advanced seed packages, but conventional genetic modification focused on the nucleus doesn’t deliver nearly the expression levels possible in the chloroplast,” said Dr. Martha Schlicher, CEO of Plastomics. “Our technology can deliver beneficial multi-trait stacks at high expression levels providing for greater insect and disease control benefits, which will fill a strong market need.”

Plastomics was founded in St. Louis because of ready access to best in class agricultural talent and the intellectual and physical assets at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center (DDPSC). Plastomics is also the recipient of a Wells Fargo IN2 grant that fostered additional collaboration between DDPSC investigators and Plastomics.

“Chloroplasts have long been thought to be interesting targets for trait development, but have proven quite difficult to manipulate,” said Dr. Jim Carrington, President and CEO of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. “Plastomics’ breakthrough technology will give seed producers the benefits of a simplified product development platform, which offers great benefits for feeding a growing population in more sustainable ways.”

As part of its this investment, Steve Welker, Operating Partner of Lewis & Clark AgriFood, and John Peryam, Partner of Fulcrum Global Capital, will be joining the Plastomics board of directors.

“The future of seed and crop protection is going to rely heavily on continued advancement in trait technologies, and the ability to stack these traits is paramount,” said Welker. “The work Plastomics is leading will deliver tremendous value throughout the agriculture industry.”

NEW YORK, NY – October 26, 2021

Gencove, the leading low-pass genome sequencing platform company, today announced the successful close of a $10 million Series A investment bringing the company’s total financing to $16.2 million. The round was led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood with participation from new and existing investors including Spero Ventures, Techammer, Third Kind Venture Capital, and Version One Ventures. Funding will be used for further product development, commercial growth and to build out key business functions.

DNA sequencing has become the foundation for biological advancements by enabling the exploration of genetic variants and structural changes in DNA. Historically, technologies for genetic testing fall into two categories: low-throughput and costly options such as whole genome sequencing, and high-throughput but limited technologies like genotyping arrays.

Gencove solves the too much or too little quandary by combining low-pass whole genome sequencing (reading the DNA fewer times) with a proprietary software-as-a-service (SAAS) computation layer. The result is a unique high-throughput and cost-effective whole genome sequencing solution.

“We believe the next revolution in genomics will be driven by software,” said Joseph Pickrell, Ph.D., co-founder, and CEO of Gencove. “It’s rewarding to work with investors who recognize the value our platform provides to the agricultural, biotechnology, clinical testing, and pharmaceutical industries.”

In addition to Gencove’s low-pass whole genome sequencing and SAAS platform, the company has developed large cross-species genomic datasets and reference panels. For its customers, these data equate to greater accuracy, more meaning, and increased research flexibility, today and in the future.

“Gencove’s platform and datasets can help unlock the genetic underpinnings of our health and wellbeing,” said Larry Page, Ph.D., managing director at Lewis and Clark AgriFood. “We are thrilled to be part of a company whose technology has such broad consumer and industrial applications from agrigenomics, biotechnology, virology to medical diagnoses, disease susceptibility, and response to medical treatment.”

“The new round of funding will enable us to systematically address the significant demand for industrial-scale genomics we’re seeing in the market,” said Tomaz Berisa, Ph.D., Gencove’s co-founder, and CTO. “We look forward to bringing our novel genomics platform to more customers as quickly as possible to support their important work.”

ST. LOUIS, MO - September 17, 2021

Lewis & Clark AgriFood likes where it sits.

General Partner and Managing Director Dave Taiclet said more than 70% of the U.S. agriculture production occurs within 500 miles of St. Louis. For an investment firm focused on backing food and agriculture companies, that figure is proof the investment firm calls the right city home.

Lewis & Clark AgriFood has taken advantage of the positioning, rapidly expanding its portfolio since launch. And it’s on the hunt for more deals, announcing in July it closed on $257 million across two funds, including $169 million for its AgriFood Fund II and $88 million for its RBIC (Rural Business Investment Co.) Fund II.

Lewis & Clark AgriFood launched as an offshoot of St. Louis-based investment firm Lewis & Clark Partners with the intent of developing a funding strategy in the food and agriculture industries. It focused on later-stage, growth investments and has backed 18 companies since starting its first fund in 2016. It has one exit so far and two other portfolio firms, St. Louis-based Benson Hill and GreenLight Biosciences of Medford, Massachusetts, plan to go public through special purpose acquisition companies.

The St. Louis investor is operating in a sector that’s becoming more popular, with agtech venture investment ballooning in recent years. But Lewis & Clark AgriFood believes its expertise, focus on rural companies and its hometown of St. Louis provide an edge in a space becoming more crowded.

Sprouting a strategy

its start through Lewis & Clark Ventures, a venture capital firm started in 2015 that’s also part of Lewis & Clark Partners. Lewis & Clark Ventures launched an agtech fund in 2016 to focus on early stage investments.

In 2019, Lewis & Clark Partners spun out Lewis & Clark AgriFood, a move Taiclet said was made to build off of Lewis & Clark Venture’s initial investment success and the expertise of its management team around food and agriculture.

“We felt there was a broader opportunity in food, agtech and plant science,” Taiclet said.

Taiclet joined Lewis & Clark Partners with an extensive background in the food and agriculture space, having been the former president of the food group for 1800Flowers.com Inc. (NASDAQ: FLWS). He had previously been CEO of Fannie May Confections Brands and co-founder of Alpine Confections, which sold to 1800Flowers.com in 2006.

The decision to launch Lewis & Clark AgriFood provided an opportunity to expand the firm’s investment thesis as well as the check size of its investments, Taiclet said. Lewis & Clark AgriFood typically writes checks between $5 million to $15 million and prefers to lead investment rounds. On average, it expects to be involved with its investments anywhere from three to seven years before an exit.

Carving a niche

Lewis & Clark AgriFood is far from alone in targeting investment in innovative food and agriculture companies. Its portfolio has grown as more dollars globally flow

into the agtech sector. Through the first half of 2021, investors pumped $4.3 billion into agtech firms, just behind last year’s overall total of $5.15 billion, according to industry publication CropLife.

Lewis & Clark AgriFood recognizes the competition, but is confident there are key characteristics behind the firm’s strategy that make it unique from fellow investors. One is the expertise of its management, both from a technical and operations perspective.

Its management team also includes Managing Director Tim Hassler, who joined the firm in 2019 after being managing partner at St. Louis-based Advantage Capital Agribusiness Partners.

The St. Louis investment group also has an eye on rural areas, with its RBIC fund part of a U.S. Department of Agriculture investment program designed to inject capital into those types of populations. That has given the firm an understanding of rural environments and an

outlet to back companies in parts of the country other investors might overlook, Taiclet said.

RALEIGH, NC - August 31, 2021

SinnovaTek is bolstering its executive leadership team, as the Company moves to scale-up their efforts to become a leading service partner to emerging brands. This month, the Board appointed Jim Holbrook to become Chairman of the Board of Directors, a veteran consumer packaged goods (CPG) executive who brings a vast amount of knowledge and expertise around sales, marketing, brand-building, and business operations, to the Company. In his new role with SinnovaTek, Jim will be a key advisor to the business as it continues to expand its current operations and refine their B2B strategy.

“The team and the technology at SinnovaTek are both impressive, and I see a robust growth curve for them. I am delighted to join the team and cheer them on,” said Holbrook.

“We are very pleased to have Jim joining us and committed to playing an ongoing role in the executive leadership of SinnovaTek. As we continue to drive significant growth in our co-manufacturing business, it will be incredibly important we have the right voices at the table – those that are experienced in business operations, and also those that share our mission of promoting health and wellness via a sustainable supply chain,” said Michael Druga, Co-Founder, President and CEO of SinnovaTek.

Most recently, Jim was the CEO of Daymon Worldwide, a Stamford, CT-based corporation that provides marketing, branding, and market research data analysis services intended to create leading private brands, focused on exceptional consumer experience. At Daymon, Jim oversaw the company’s merger with Advantage, creating “the most comprehensive suite of brand-centric and retailer-centric services in the U.S. and internationally.” Prior to joining Daymon in 2015, he served as the President & CEO of Post Consumer Brands, which at the time, comprised of Post’s cereal business, as well as Power Bar and other company acquisitions in the nutrition products category. He has also held roles at Zipatoni, Interpublic Group, Ralston Purina (now Nestlé Purina), and Procter & Gamble, with increased levels of responsibility. Jim is also currently a member of the Board of Zea BioSciences, a Massachusetts-based biotechnology firm that specializes in developing high-quality botanical ingredients for use in consumer and pharmaceutical applications.

The recent appointment follows a $5M investment in SinnovaTek by Lewis & Clark AgriFood, a St. Louis-based AgTech and FoodTech investment firm, which was announced in mid-July.

“Through Jim’s prior experiences, he brings not only an expertise in growing and scaling businesses that operate in the CPG space, but also an intimate understanding of the end customer SinnovaTek is serving. Both of which will be invaluable as SinnovaTek transitions from an early pioneer to a market-leading B2B platform serving the CPG industry,” said Tim Hassler, Managing Director of Lewis & Clark AgriFood.

“It is a rarity that you find someone as well-rounded as Jim. He brings an incredible background of business and operational expertise to SinnovaTek, as well as thought leadership in formulating, developing, and implementing business strategy in forward-thinking brands and companies,” said Dave Taiclet, General Partner and Managing Director of Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “We are fortunate to have him as part of the SinnovaTek team.”

ST. LOUIS, MO - August 18, 2021

The team of insect entrepreneurs at Beta Hatch has announced it has closed a new $10 million funding round, led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood, with support from existing investors Cavallo Ventures and Innova Memphis. Beta Hatch has secured product interest far exceeding existing capacity, and this latest round of funding will be used to finalize and expand Beta Hatch’s flagship facility in Cashmere, WA, as the company grows its footprint in rural America.

Beta Hatch is focused on scaling up the farming of insects for a more sustainable food chain. Through a proprietary process, it provides an alternative protein-rich, feed source for livestock, pets, and other animals. With its virtually zero-waste process, Beta Hatch also produces mealworm frass (insect manure), an organic fertilizer and soil amendment for improving soil health and plant growth for a variety of specialty and commodity growers.

“Novel food and feed ingredients is a key area of focus for Lewis & Clark AgriFood,” said Dave Taiclet, General Partner and Managing Director, Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “When we think about sustainability, it’s important that we take a holistic approach in evaluating all processes in the animal production supply chain. Beta Hatch is positioned well to provide a modern, sustainable alternative in the animal feed space, a key upstream component in the overall protein production cycle.”

While black soldier fly is today’s main insect ingredient in the market, mealworms are quickly gaining market share with enhanced nutritional benefits and higher protein concentration. These features, along with the domestic production Beta Hatch is establishing in North America, has drawn interest from a variety of industries, including livestock, poultry, and pet feed, in addition to aquaculture.

“As regenerative food systems become more prevalent, the feed industry will evolve along with it,” said Tim Hassler, Managing Director, Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “Beta Hatch’s approach to industrializing insects will provide a stable and steady food source in a variety of markets, while injecting capital investment into rural communities.”

Hassler is leading this latest investment effort from the Lewis & Clark AgriFood team, and he will be joining the Beta Hatch board of directors. Matt Plummer, Senior Associate, Lewis & Clark AgriFood, will serve as a board observer.

Beta Hatch is scaling up operations by using a hub and spoke model. The Cashmere facility will serve as the hub, producing eggs, while growing sites (spokes) will be located in close proximity to sources of feedstock and other key points in the supply chain. This approach means a smaller GHG footprint, and new capital investments in rural communities that leverage and revitalize existing infrastructure. As the company scales up its operations, so will the number of people the company employs in rural communities.

“We are proud to be a part of building the future of farming as a member of the Washington agricultural community,” said Virginia Emery, Founder and CEO, Beta Hatch. “We are excited for our presence in rural America to grow, as we employ and partner with the people in those communities to feed a growing global population.”

Once completed, the Cashmere facility will be the largest mealworm producing facility in North America. It will house the full production process for growing and distributing mealworms. The company will initially produce several thousand tons of mealworms and frass annually and be able to support rapid expansion of capacity from this flagship location. Currently, all available mealworm production is under contract for the near future and discussions are underway with several enterprise customers to partner in the construction of new facilities. The company has plans to more than 10x its production within the next year.

Beta Hatch has prioritized sustainable energy and zero-waste practices at its facilities. The Cashmere flagship maintains a small carbon footprint, as it is operating solely on renewably sourced electricity, with all of its heating needs supplied by waste heat from a nearby server farm. The production process itself is a zero-waste system, starting with the mealworms feeding on organic byproducts, and ending with the mealworms and their frass being used for feed and fertilizer.

ST. LOUIS, MO - July 14, 2021

Lewis & Clark AgriFood has announced its $5 million investment in SinnovaTek from the Lewis & Clark Rural Business Investment Company (RBIC) Fund II.

Founded in 2015 and based in Raleigh, North Carolina, SinnovaTek provides a variety of B2B services to the consumer packaged goods industry. Over the past year, the company has seen significant growth in their aseptic co-packing business, which offers ingredient sourcing, product development and processing, as well as end packaging, to a variety of small and emerging brands as well as large national brands.

“SinnovaTek is a key player in the next generation of CPG food and beverage brands,” said Dave Taiclet, General Partner and Managing Director, Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “As consumers continue to demand healthier foods produced with sustainable practices throughout the supply chain, processing and packaging will play a huge role in delivering on those brand promises.”

As a Certified B Corp, SinnovaTek’s mission is to promote worldwide health and wellness by fostering the delivery of high quality, healthy foods through sustainable methods. The company has several partnerships through which they are combatting hunger and malnourishment in developing regions.

“The investment from Lewis & Clark AgriFood has us well-positioned to grow along with our partners in the CPG space as they provide nutritious foods with longer shelf-lives,” said Michael Druga, Co-founder, President and CEO, SinnovaTek. “Drawing on the industry leadership and connections from the Lewis & Clark AgriFood team will be key drivers for this growth.”

Underpinning SinnovaTek’s capabilities is proprietary technology that improves quality and sustainability in shelf-stable foods. SinnovaTek’s scalable, regional, “quality-first” offerings positions them as a unique service partner increasing accessibility to high-quality processing for the food and beverage industry.

The SinnovaTek family of companies provides several pathways to service its customers’ needs:

SinnovaTek: Provides high-quality continuous flow microwave processing systems and pumps to food manufacturers along with the engineering and R&D support to make them successful.

SinnoVita: Provides science-backed VITERO ingredient technologies to reduce food waste and increase nutrient delivery.

FirstWave: Provides a platform for companies to launch and test new products in a high-quality aseptic format without the minimum order quantities that are normally required for a launch, enabling SinnovaTek to service customer production needs before they are ready to move to a larger scale.

As part of the investment, Tim Hassler, Managing Director of Lewis & Clark AgriFood, received a seat on the board, and Matt Plummer, Senior Associate of Lewis & Clark AgriFood, received a board observership.

“I am excited to work closely with SinnovaTek as it scales up its offerings, bringing its technology to new and emerging brands,” said Hassler. “As the food and beverage space undergoes a transformation, SinnovaTek can help these brands capitalize on new opportunities.”

ST. LOUIS, MO - July 7, 2021

Lewis & Clark AgriFood announced that its overall growth equity strategy has closed at $257 million – with its Lewis & Clark AgriFood Fund II closing oversubscribed at more than $169 million, and its Lewis & Clark RBIC Fund II at $88 million in December 2020.

Based in St. Louis, Lewis & Clark AgriFood takes a holistic approach to investment, considering growth-stage investments in companies along the entire value chain – seeking out underserved sub-sectors in the ecosystem.

St. Louis is home to the highest concentration of plant science PhDs in the world, while the firm’s location puts it within 500 miles of 70 percent of U.S. agricultural production – giving it proximity to a vast pool within which to identify, forge connections, and deploy investments.

To this sphere, Lewis & Clark AgriFoods brings to bear a wide swath of experience in the sector, and an extensive network that it leverages through its partnerships with its portfolio companies to enhance performance.

“We are very pleased with the funding for our AgriFood growth strategy, and we are excited to get to work with our partners to modernize the food and agriculture value chain,” said Dave Taiclet, general partner and managing director, Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “As the industry undergoes a considerable transformation fueled by advancements in science and technology, there has never been a better time to be investing in these sectors.”

Since its first fund launched in 2016, Lewis & Clark has invested in 15 companies, and has exited one. Currently, another of its companies is currently going public via a $2 billion SPAC merger.

Together, the AgriFood Fund II and the RBIC Fund II have already invested in eight companies developing the most cutting-edge solutions across a range of applications. These include:

BlueNalu – In January of this year San Diego-based BlueNalu raised the largest funding round to-date in the global cellular seafood space when it closed on a $60 million Series A.

Recognizing the range of challenges being faced by the wild catch seafood industry, including fraud, overfishing, environmental impact, pollution, illegal labor issues, and heavy metal toxicity, the founding team brought together expertise in cell biology, IP, food tech, tissue engineering, commercialization, and marketing to sustainably create cell-cultured finned fish, crustaceans, and mollusks in a laboratory setting.

Brightseed – In September 2020, Lewis & Clark AgriFood led a $27 million round of growth capital funding for Brightseed – an AI-driven biosciences company that developed Forager™, the first and only AI technology for phytonutrient discovery in the world.

Bushel – Lewis & Clark AgriFood led a $47 million round in April of this year for Bushel – an independently owned software and software technology solutions provider to grain growers, buyers, protein producers, and food companies.

Stony Creek Colors – In March of this year Lewis & Clark AgriFood led a $9 million round for Stony Creek – a company working to reverse the trend of synthetic petroleum-based blue dye being used in the production of jeans by developing proprietary systems to transform the dye supply chain along with a full agricultural value chain for plant-based indigo.

Tortuga AgTech – In April of this year Lewis & Clark AgriFood also led a $20 million Series A for Tortuga AgTech, an ag robotics startups that was singled out in 2019 by Philippe de Lapérouse and Mark Zavodnyik of HighQuest Consulting as a robotics company to watch.

And BinSentry – In September 2020 Lewis & Clark AgriFood led a $7.7 million round for this Canadian sensor tech company that is raising efficiency for feed mills, livestock producers, and farmers through remote feed bin monitoring.

“Our sweet spot is working with tech-centric, sustainable companies that enable the agricultural industry to keep up with changing consumer demands,” said Tom Hillman, founding partner, Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “We are well positioned by having subject matter experts and several strategic industry experts as investors, as their knowledge and access to distribution helps accelerate the growth of our companies.”

ST. LOUIS, MO - May 9, 2021

Benson Hill Inc. is going public by merging with a special-purpose acquisition company in a deal that values the plant-growing technology firm at $2 billion, the companies said.

The operator of a platform that uses machine learning, simulations and genetics to optimize plant growth, Benson Hill is combining with the SPAC Star Peak Corp. II. STPC 0.20% Benson Hill says it can develop breeds of crops like soybeans and yellow peas that mature faster, have higher protein content or taste better, saving growers time and resources.

Such ingredients are key for plant-based meat alternatives, and the company is also developing products for animal feed. Cheaper, more-sustainable plant-growing methods are needed to feed the world’s growing population and accelerate the fight against climate change, analysts say.

The St. Louis-based company expects to begin commercial production of its ultrahigh-protein soybean by next year and is developing a yellow-pea protein concentrate. It also has a unit that sells fresh produce to grocery stores and food distributors. The roughly $625 million in expected cash proceeds from the deal will accelerate Benson Hill’s bid to bring down plant-based food costs, Chief Executive Matt Crisp said in an interview.

“It’s positioning us to really gear shift into another level of growth,” he said.

Founded in 2012, Benson Hill expects last year’s sales of about $100 million to surge as it provides more products to food companies, restaurants and grocery stores.

Existing investors in the company include GV—the venture-capital arm of Alphabet Inc.—and agricultural trading giants Bunge Ltd. and Louis Dreyfus Co. Investors including funds managed by BlackRock Inc., Van Eck Associates Corp., Hedosophia and Lazard Asset Management are putting money into the deal through a $225 million private investment in public equity, or PIPE, associated with the merger. Those funds and money held by the SPAC are expected to yield the roughly $625 million in cash proceeds.

Benson Hill joins the group of early-stage companies tied to sustainability, such as vertical-farming company AeroFarms, that are raising money and going public through SPACs.

“If you’re serious about decarbonizing the economy, you have to decarbonize [agriculture],” said Mike Morgan, chairman of the Star Peak Corp. II SPAC and chief executive of asset manager Triangle Peak Partners LP.

Star Peak II is the second blank-check firm backed by Mr. Morgan—a former executive at energy infrastructure firm Kinder Morgan Inc. —and investors at the hedge fund Magnetar Capital. The team’s first Star Peak SPAC recently took clean-energy storage firm Stem Inc. public.

Magnetar is among the biggest SPAC investors and had nearly $2.9 billion in blank-check company holdings at the end of 2020, according to a compilation of regulatory filings by data provider SPAC Research.

SPACs like Star Peak II are shell companies that list on an exchange to acquire a private firm and take it public. They are also called blank-check companies. Merging with a SPAC has become a common way for startups to raise large sums and access investors who are excited about themes like sustainability. One reason is that SPAC mergers let startups make rosy projections about their business, which aren’t allowed in a normal initial public offering.

SPAC executives argue that they are accelerating growth for technology-driven businesses that could eventually change the world. Skeptics contend that some low-revenue firms going public via blank-check companies aren’t ready to do so and could hit individual investors with losses if their technology fails. Concerns about tighter regulation and lofty valuations have in recent weeks dragged down shares of SPACs and companies they have taken public.

So far this year, SPACs have raised more than $100 billion, according to SPAC Research, surging past 2020’s record total of more than $80 billion.

After the deal closes later this year, Benson Hill is expected to trade under the ticker symbol “BHIL.”

ST. LOUIS, MO - April 22, 2021

Tortuga AgTech is one step closer to solving one of the largest challenges for growers – harvest labor – after securing a $20 million Series A funding round led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood. Other investors include Ceres Partners, Root Ventures (a third-time investor), Spero Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, Morado Ventures, Colorado Impact Fund, Remus Capital and Grit Ventures.

The funding makes Tortuga the biggest venture capital backed agricultural harvesting robotics company in the world.

“We took a very strategic view of this industry and are excited about the opportunity to invest in Tortuga,” said Dave Taiclet, general partner and managing director, Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “Tortuga’s approach to thinking through grower economics and operations gave us a lot of confidence.”

With initial robots developed for strawberry production, Tortuga has always considered growers’ businesses first and foremost.

“Grower operations and economics are challenging, and we’ve worked hard to build our system to easily integrate with the grower’s,” said Eric Adamson, CEO, Tortuga. “To do this well takes agronomic, operational and even manufacturing expertise, not just advanced robotics and artificial intelligence.”

Tortuga AgTech, the biggest venture capital backed ag harvesting robotics company, secures $20M Series A funding led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood to bring a robotic harvester to high-value crops, including strawberries.

Advanced robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are fundamentally changing the ability to navigate challenging demands of producing high-value crops by focusing on workers.

“Robotics and automation empower growers to transition to the next iteration of farming format,” said Larry Page, Ph.D., managing director, Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “The agricultural system faces many challenges from environmental impact, to escalating labor shortages, to the need for a more sustainable food system. Companies like Tortuga help to solve these challenges while simultaneously helping growers to succeed.”

Tortuga is part of an ecosystem focused on sustainability, quality and cost for growers to make a more efficient system possible, especially in the fresh produce industry. The Tortuga harvesting robotics will provide growers with reliable and affordable labor along with access to critical data to improve their operational efficiency. Growers save money immediately because of the low-cost custom robotics and software approach.

“People often think of robots as a simple labor replacement, but we see it as much bigger than that,” Adamson said. “When cereal crops started using tractors, it didn’t just replace the ox or the horse. It fundamentally changed how farms operated and how the industry was structured to be tractor-centric. The same thing is happening in fresh produce with advanced robotics and AI. This will completely change how the grower profits and navigates challenging demands.”

Tortuga intentionally started by solving the grower’s problem with new technology, not the other way around. They designed a form factor that addresses the problem and is lower cost than traditional approaches, which is a more difficult challenge to overcome. “We learned early on that in order to really create value for the grower and Tortuga, we needed to build our own custom robotics stack of hardware and software,” said Tim Brackbill, co-founder and CTO, Tortuga. “We also built a generalizable picking algorithm that allows us to transfer across farms and even crops with relative ease. We’ve built a team that is excited to keep driving the industry forward from here.”

Tortuga has begun the commercialization process for a second crop, outdoor table grapes, with a focus on the future for glasshouse tomato, pepper, cucumber and outdoor blueberry crops in the coming years.

Software manufacturer Bushel has announced the closing of its $47 million Series C investment, its largest round of funding to date. The funding, led by investment firm Lewis & Clark AgriFood in St. Louis, and global holding company Continental Grain Co., sets the company up to propel into a higher echelon of participation in the grain origination process. It was also announced that Consolidated Grain and Barge Co. is expected to close their investment in the round in the coming weeks.

Bushel also counts Cargill, Scoular, and Germin8 Ventures among its investors, providing a rich base of partners and collaborators upon which to move forward.

The infusion of growth capital and continued partnership of the syndicate will introduce payments, credit, trading offerings, and increased data services, including capabilities to help consumer brands sustainably source commodities in the global grain supply chain. The funding will also accelerate Bushel’s current product offerings that currently deliver value to growers, commodity buyers, ag retailers and consumer packaged goods (CPGs).

“We have really solidified the tipping point for Bushel,” says Jake Joraanstad, Bushel CEO and Co-Founder. Looking at the new investment and growth in use, Joraanstad asserts that Bushel is a “real scaled out opportunity, and there are a ton of ways to help these companies we work with and their farmers. But just getting to this point is really a big stepping stone toward building a solid business in the U.S. and Canada.”

“We are excited to invest further into Bushel alongside some of our high-value partners like Cargill and Scoular,” said Chris Abbott, Co-Head of Continental Grain Ventures. “Bushel is one of the leading independent software companies in agriculture, and serves as the critical link connecting growers to grain buyers, processors, brands, and consumers. This funding accelerates deployment of new offerings and embedded capabilities throughout the food and ag value chain. We believe it results in better outcomes for growers and the supply chain.”

“Our goal is to help all businesses that are buying grain from the farmer originate more effectively with that grower and solidify that digital relationship,” says Joraanstad. “The opportunity here was to go from Bushel being available on a lot of small and medium platforms to also being ready to move onto the bigger platforms like a Cargill or others who need to be a part of this digital supply chain. We are trying to build a digital infrastructure here, and I think these big players coming on the platform is more proof that what we are doing is going to matter and be an effective long-term solution in the supply chain.”

According to Bushel, its platform reaches 40% of grain origination in the U.S., and $22 billion worth of grain is contracted annually within the company’s ecosystem. It will continue to pursue new participants throughout the value chain, particularly CPGs and consumer brands, that will benefit from upstream and midstream data insights and help deliver on sustainability promises, says Joraanstad.

For his part, Larry Page, Managing Director of Lewis & Clark, believes that Bushel will emerge as a leader in connecting disparate data systems in the food and agriculture supply chain. “Digital innovation has landed on the farm, but few companies are focused on the digital side of agriculture from the farm gate and beyond,” he says. “We hear so much noise in the space with very little real traction. As Bushel has consistently gained market share, it has become clear that the ability to connect data with physical grain has significant value for many stakeholders in our food system.”

Bushel reports that 60,000 growers use its products and services monthly, and nearly 2,000 grain buying locations across the U.S. and Canada utilize its services to power their grower-facing and internal software products. Bushel’s platform integrates into multiple grain accounting systems, trading desks, farm management systems, insurance companies, and market feeds to allow different software systems to work with each other.

SPRINGFIELD, TN - March 3, 2021

Stony Creek Colors, a Springfield, Tennessee-based producer of natural indigo dye, has closed $9 million in Series B financing led by St Louis’ Lewis & Clark AgriFood Ventures.

The company, founded by CEO Sarah Bellos in 2012 when she couldn’t find a scalable source for natural dyes, is a leading producer of high purity natural indigo – a plant-based blue dye that looks to fulfill the increasing global demand for natural colorants in fabric and food.

Under Bellos’ leadership, Stony Creek Colors became the first company in the US to grow the indigo plant at a scale usable by the commercial denim industry.

More than 1.2 billion pairs of jeans are sold annually, and one of the chief components of this wardrobe staple is the indigo shade of blue needed to create the necessary blue color. Historically, this was done with synthetic indigo dye, made with chemicals such as cyanide, formaldehyde, and benzene.

But Bellos wanted to reduce the toxins and remove these harmful chemicals out of the supply chain. In a short time, Stony Creek Colors has created innovative tech including the development of a proprietary indigo plant variety which it says enables it to profitably supply the market with in-demand indigo plant-based color. The founder hopes this will enable the transition from synthetic, petroleum-based processes that rely on toxic chemicals.

“There is strong demand for plant-based dyes and plant-based alternatives to synthetic colors, both in textiles and food products,” Dave Taiclet, Lewis & Clark AgriFood’s general partner and managing director, told AFN. “It fits well with our investment thesis that consumers are demanding natural and eco-friendly alternatives.”

Stony Creek Colors’ BioPreferred-certified, plant-based indigo is free of the hazardous chemicals currently under scrutiny by leading denim brands and is grown on plots of land once reserved for growing tobacco.

“Today, the synthetic indigo used in denim relies on petroleum-based processes that leave behind toxic residue on jeans,” Bellos said. “Stony Creek Color’s plant-made indigo is free of these toxins, providing a healthier and more sustainable solution for coloring denim. In addition, our indigo-producing crops create a high-value rotation opportunity for farmers, sequester carbon in the soil, and reduce the need for nitrogen fertilizers.”

Lewis & Clark made the investment into Bellos’ company on what was the first day of Women’s History Month.

“We were very excited to partner with Sarah given the limited number of female founders and CEOs in agtech,” Tim Hassler, managing director at Lewis & Clark AgriFood and now a member of Stony Creek Colors’ board of directors, told AFN. “We hope that this will propel the company to be a leader in plant-based colors in the textiles, food, and beverage markets, and secures them as a reliable partner to their demanding customers.”

Stony Creek Colors will use the funding to scale, allowing a geographic expansion of its proprietary indigo-producing crops and processing capabilities to bring its dye to more denim mills.

“We believe Stony Creek Colors has a unique, defendable strategy to not only deliver this product to the fashion world, but also the food sector,” Taiclet said.

Other new investors in the Series B were Innova Memphis and iSelect Fund; returning from earlier rounds of financing were Green Spark Capital and Next Wave Impact.

“The ingenuity here is in Sarah’s vision to offer tobacco farmers with an alternative high-margin specialty crop that largely parallels current farming practices and more fully utilizes pre-existing capital equipment, bringing those farmers new means to generate revenue,” said Dean Didato, general manager at Innova Memphis, which invested in the Series B round through its Ag Innovation Fund IV.

“Customer demands for cleaner color and the removal of toxic chemicals from their products will not wane,” Bellos said.

“Our proven plant-based indigo solutions offer an exciting opportunity for brands to exceed customer expectations. This investment will leverage our new technology, from seed to extraction, to help bring Stony Creek Colors through a phase of rapid growth.”

ST. LOUIS, MO - January 19, 2021

Lewis & Clark AgriFood, a St. Louis-based food and agriculture focused investment firm, today announced the promotion of Larry Page, PhD, to Managing Director.

“Larry joined Lewis & Clark in 2016 and has been integral in leading our team’s science effort, deal flow, and overall organizational growth strategy,” said David Taiclet, General Partner and Managing Director of Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “His impressive background and knowledge of multiple spaces, from science and technology to commercialization, make him an invaluable member of our leadership and investment team. This promotion continues to solidify us as a leader in the food and agriculture investing space.”

Prior to joining Lewis & Clark, Larry worked at PierianDx, a start-up specializing in clinical bioinformatics, where he was a manager in several facets of the business, including on the laboratory and sales teams. Preceding his work at PierianDx, Larry spent time as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Nidus Partnership, where he also served as Chief Technology Officer of Terra Biologics, a start-up working to commercialize cyanobacteria-based biofertilizers. Larry received his PhD in Biochemistry from Washington University in St. Louis, where his thesis focused on the basic mechanics of photosynthetic light harvesting. He conducted undergraduate research on plant molecular biology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, where he received a B.S. in Biochemistry.

Tom Hillman, Founding Partner of Lewis & Clark, added, “This promotion reflects our ongoing commitment to be a leader in identifying investment opportunities and partnering with outstanding growth-oriented companies in the food and agriculture space. We are very excited about the team and capability we are building at Lewis & Clark AgriFood.”

ST. LOUIS, MO - January 21, 2021

Lewis & Clark AgriFood, a St. Louis-based food and agriculture focused investment firm, today announced a $5 million investment from their AgriFood Growth Fund in BlueNalu, a leading innovative food company producing a variety of seafood products directly from fish cells.

Based in San Diego, California, BlueNalu announced the closing of $60 million in financing from new and existing investors. This marks the largest investment to date in the cell-based seafood industry worldwide.

The investment is intended to enable BlueNalu to achieve several significant milestones over the coming year, including opening a nearly 40,000 square foot pilot production facility and initiating marketplace testing in a variety of foodservice establishments throughout the United States.

“Innovative companies like BlueNalu represent an incredible opportunity to help promote sustainable advancements in food and agriculture technologies,” said David Taiclet, Managing Director and General Partner of Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “We’re very excited to support its mission to be the global leader in cellular aquaculture to help feed the world. Lewis & Clark is proud to partner with BlueNalu in the next phase of the company’s growth.”

Larry Page, PhD, Managing Director of Lewis & Clark AgriFood added, “We have looked at a wide variety of companies in the cellular agriculture industry, and find BlueNalu differentiated in two key areas. First, their early focus on ocean-going finfish that have to date proven difficult to farm means that they are creating a product whose alternative must be harvested from the wild. Second, the team has a great set of technical leaders, and BlueNalu has a unique COGS-reduction strategy that should enable them to get to scale very quickly.”

“The team at BlueNalu is driven to produce cell-based seafood products that are healthy for consumers, humane for animals, sustainable for our planet, and provide increased food security to each nation in which we go to market,” stated Lou Cooperhouse, BlueNalu’s President and CEO. “This recent financing will allow us to continue advancing our mission and the next phase of our commercialization plans, while we continue to develop strategic partnerships that we expect will provide us with global market reach during the coming years.”

BlueNalu plans to introduce a wide variety of cell-based seafood products from its pilot production facility in San Diego. The company anticipates starting with the launch of mahi mahi later this year, followed by the launch of a premium bluefin tuna thereafter.

“The global market for seafood is highly vulnerable today and is valued at an estimated $200 billion. With strong investor support, our innovative and visionary management team demonstrates a clear value proposition, technology, IP, and a comprehensive regulatory strategy, all of which provide a solid foundation as we move closer to our in-market launch,” said Amir Feder, BlueNalu’s CFO.https://c9fb31dd9c0072bf9d41608696d6e924.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

BlueNalu is currently establishing joint venture partnerships within key markets where it will operate. These partnerships are expected to enable them to navigate regulatory pathways, lower the cost of goods, introduce new species and new product forms, and inform their global market strategy. Previously, BlueNalu announced five global strategic investment partners: Nutreco, based in the Netherlands; Pulmuone, based in South Korea; Sumitomo, based in Japan; and Griffith Foods and Rich Products Corporation, based in the U.S.

Rage Capital led the $60 million convertible note financing, and other significant participants include Agronomics, Lewis & Clark AgriFood, McWin, and Siddhi Capital. Strategic investors in this financing include Radicle Growth, by way of the Radicle Protein Challenge by Syngenta; Rich Products Corporation; and Thai Union. A partial list of other investors includes: AiiM Partners, Clear Current Capital, CPT Capital, Flat World Partners, KBW Ventures, Losa Group, OurCrowd, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and Stray Dog Ventures. As part of this financing, BlueNalu added four new Observers to its Board of Directors: Steven Finn of Siddhi Capital, Jim Mellon of Agronomics, Larry Page of Lewis & Clark AgriFood, and Alex Ruimy of Rage Capital.

ST. LOUIS, MO - December 1, 2020

Agricultural technology company Rantizo has announced it has raised $7.5 million in series A funding led by Leaps by Bayer and several premiere ag tech investors and strategic partners including: Fall Line Capital, Innova Memphis, Lewis & Clark Ventures, KZValve, and Sukup Manufacturing. Additional participants in the round include ISA Ventures, AgVentures Alliance and other angels, which brings Rantizo’s total funding raised to date to nearly $9 million.

Founded in 2018, Rantizo has developed a platform that integrates with imagery companies to identify issues and deliver precise in-field applications with autonomous drones. In July of 2019, Rantizo received initial FAA approval for single drone spraying operations becoming the first and only company approved for drone spraying in the state of Iowa.

Less than a year later, the company became the first to gain approval for nationwide swarming for agricultural spraying, flying up to three drones at once. Farmers can request Rantizo drone application services such as precise spraying and cover crop broadcasting. To fulfill those requests, a nationwide network of Rantizo Application Services Contractors are provided with a turnkey system in which they purchase drone equipment through Rantizo and gain all licensing, training, and certifications necessary to legally Fly & Apply.

Through their end-to-end solution, Rantizo offers a way for growers to bridge the gap between analysis of their fields to actionable applications, while drastically reducing common issues associated with traditional spraying such as soil compaction, chemical overuse, and drift. Farmers also reap new benefits such as carbon sequestration, soil health improvement, and more timely application of crop care products, stated Ben Riensche, Owner & Manager of Blue Diamond Farming Co. in Jesup, IA.

“We utilized Rantizo for aerial application services and cover crop seeding on the farm,” Riensche explained. “The current row crop production model no longer has much, if any, margin in it. Machine costs are simply too high and most innovation is just focused on producing more yield, not necessarily more profit. Rantizo gives me an opportunity to apply crop care products with a fraction of the investment of a large commercial sprayer. Also, aerial seeding of cover crops will place me in the perfect spot to participate in the rapidly developing carbon sequestration marketplace, as well as simply be a better steward of the land,” Riensche added.

Currently, Rantizo service providers are primarily focused in the Midwest and can be found from the west coast to as far east as Pennsylvania. Expanding Rantizo’s Contractor network into additional geographies is a key purpose for the funding round according to CEO, Michael Ott, who stated that the 2020 season saw a drastic uptick in business.

“This year, Rantizo received requests from growers and individuals all over the country looking for drone application services,” Ott explained. “We did our best to fulfill those and realize that we need to continue to expand our network. We want to make sure we have Rantizo Application Services providers in place to keep up with demand. Securing this funding is a crucial piece of that strategy.”

Beyond Rantizo’s Contractor expansion, Ott stated that funds will be used to bring on best-in-class team additions needed to ramp up technology development for projects related to crop pollination, data management, and automation of the entire drone application process.

“Breakthrough innovation in agriculture that drives sustainable solutions is one of the 10 areas we are focusing on with our impact investment arm,” said Jürgen Eckhardt, Head of Leaps by Bayer. “Rantizo’s platform has the potential to have a lot of impact in this field. It allows for precision pest control while reducing soil compaction, leading to more breathable land and reduces carbon emission from traditional sprayers all while enabling improved farmer profitability. This is better for the crop, better for the land, and better for the farmer; leading us towards a more sustainable food supply.”

SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA - November 19. 2020

St. Louis-based investment firm Lewis & Clark AgriFood has expanded its portfolio with the backing of an agtech firm.

Lewis & Clark AgriFood said Wednesday it has provided a $7.7 million senior secured debt commitment to Hortau Corp., which has developed an irrigation management system for crops. The financing is being provided from Lewis & Clark’s Rural Business Investment Co. (RBIC) fund.

Launched in 2019, Lewis & Clark AgriFood provides later-stage venture investments and growth capital to agriculture and food companies.

“Hortau is a technology and market leader in its niche,” said Tim Hassler, principal at Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “Water conservation efforts will continue to drive growth in smart irrigation technology, and our credit facility will help Hortau benefit from this industry growth.”

St. Louis-based Advantage Capital Agribusiness Partners, where Hassler was formerly managing director, previously led a pair of funding rounds for Hortau. Founded in 2002, Hortau operates in San Luis Obispo, California, and Quebec, Canada. Its irrigation system uses sensor data and mobile technology and is designed to provide irrigation management for high-value crops.

“We appreciate the support from Lewis & Clark AgriFood which will advance our commitment to help producers achieve higher-quality crops and increased production, along with more efficient use of water and energy,” said Hortau CEO Jocelyn Boudreau.

ST. LOUIS, MO - November 6, 2020

St. Louis-based investment firm Lewis & Clark AgriFood has expanded its portfolio with the backing of an agtech firm.

Lewis & Clark AgriFood said Wednesday it has provided a $7.7 million senior secured debt commitment to Hortau Corp., which has developed an irrigation management system for crops. The financing is being provided from Lewis & Clark’s Rural Business Investment Co. (RBIC) fund.

Launched in 2019, Lewis & Clark AgriFood provides later-stage venture investments and growth capital to agriculture and food companies.

“Hortau is a technology and market leader in its niche,” said Tim Hassler, principal at Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “Water conservation efforts will continue to drive growth in smart irrigation technology, and our credit facility will help Hortau benefit from this industry growth.”

St. Louis-based Advantage Capital Agribusiness Partners, where Hassler was formerly managing director, previously led a pair of funding rounds for Hortau. Founded in 2002, Hortau operates in San Luis Obispo, California, and Quebec, Canada. Its irrigation system uses sensor data and mobile technology and is designed to provide irrigation management for high-value crops.

“We appreciate the support from Lewis & Clark AgriFood which will advance our commitment to help producers achieve higher-quality crops and increased production, along with more efficient use of water and energy,” said Hortau CEO Jocelyn Boudreau.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - September 15, 2020

Brightseed, the company launched by former Hampton Creek head of research and development, Jim Flatt, to identify the presence of specific nutrients in plants that are believed to boost human health, has raised $27 million in its latest round of funding, the company said.

Brightseed will use the financing, in part, to complete clinical studies to prove out the benefits of phytonutrients and the claims that the company and its partners are looking to make.

The company’s first product is a phytonutrient compound believed to be beneficial to metabolic health and a way to manage and treat fatty liver disease.

Using the company’s machine learning platform called “Forager,” Brightseed can identify the presence of phytonutrients in species of plants. Those plants can then be cultivated or their compounds manufactured to produce ingredients for consumer foods.

It’s a variation on the thesis Flatt developed at Hampton Creek. There the idea was to use machine learning to identify combinations of plant proteins that could be used to make protein replacement products for traditional animal-derived foods.

Instead of looking at protein replacements broadly, Flatt has shifted the focus at Brightseed to concentrate on human health and functional ingredients — chiefly these phytonutrients. “The strength and the power of nutrition is to make modest changes over a long period of time that have important health benefits,” said Flatt in an interview.

To make his case, Flatt pointed to a study from Geisinger that followed pre-diabetic patients and showed how their conditions could be controlled and improved by concentrating on their metabolic health.

“With patients that spent $200 on whole foods… they saw a 40 percent reduction in their A1c levels [and] that’s more than double what the existing class drugs can achieve,” said Flatt. “From an economic perspective they reduced their cost of healthcare by 80% thanks to lower hospitalizations and insulin use.”

Brightseed intends to bring its own ingredient discoveries to market itself but will work with partners using the Forager system to collaborate on new ingredient discoveries that can be shared with producers, Flatt said.

The dual path to market is likely one of the reasons why Brightseed was able to raise new capital from Lewis & Clark AgriFood and previous investors, including Seed 2 Growth Ventures, Horizons Ventures, CGC Ventures, Fifty Years, Germin8 and AgFunder.

“This capital raise is going to really allow us to really accelerate that exploration of the dark matter of nutrition. All of these phytonutrients that we know exist,” said Flatt. “This forager AI platform that we’ve built… we’ve developed a proprietary library that’s about 5 times what the world knows [and] one of the powers of Forager is as we do find known or new compounds we’re able to predict their utility with respect to health.”

The company already has one major partnership in place with Danone North America, which it announced earlier this year.

“As a leader in plant-based food and beverages, Danone North America values external partnerships that can help us improve and optimize the taste, texture and nutritional aspects of our products, and contribute to our biodiversity vision,” said Takoua Debeche, SVP Research & Innovation at Danone North America, in a statement at the time.

Forager’s nutrient identification technology also has implications far beyond ingredient science, said Flatt.

“What forager can do is really help create what we’ll call a virtuous cycle to incentivize adoption of a more biodiverse food supply chain and to move towards more regenerative agricultural practices and we do this by revealing the hidden qualities or benefits of some of these lesser known crops and highlighting why they can be of greater value and tell a story,” he said.

For instance, Brightseed is already partnering with a company to evaluate an underutilized superfruit and work on improving and boosting its cultivation.

“There’s some albeit limited data that shows that agricultural practices can influence these phytonutrient contents. What Forager does is help valorize those phyotnutrients and creates a story that helps drive consumer adoption and demand for more restorative products that are produced with more regenerative agricultural practices that lead to more nutrients in crops,” Flatt said.

Although the company’s revenues are currently hovering under $10 million, Flatt and his investors expect that to change rapidly.

“Brightseed’s application of technology is transforming how we understand the resources available for our health and well-being in nature,” said Dr. David Russell, operating partner at Lewis & Clark AgriFood, in a statement. “These discoveries already have a major impact on ingredient selection and how we’re formulating the things we consume every day. This is a new approach that provides a much deeper understanding of the biological connections between plants and people. We’re looking forward to supporting Brightseed in leading these breakthroughs.”

KITCHENER, CA - September 10, 2020

Kitchener-Waterloo startup BinSentry has developed an Internet of Things (IoT) solution that enables feed mills and livestock producers to monitor on-farm inventory.

In order to further develop its product and take the solution global, BinSentry recently closed a $10 million CAD ($7.7 million USD) Series A round led by United States-based food and agriculture-focused investment firm Lewis & Clark AgriFood.

“Feed bin monitoring is currently antiquated with significant opportunity to improve efficiency.”

The round also included BDC Capital’s Industrial Innovation Venture Fund, a $250 million commitment launched last year to invest in agriculture, foodtech, resource extraction, and advanced manufacturing. Jonathan Goodkey, principal at the BDC fund, is joining BinSentry’s board of directors as part of the deal.

The Series A capital brings BinSentry’s total venture funding to date to more than $12 million CAD, following a $2.1 million ($1.6 million USD) seed round in 2018. Five investors, including Kitchener-Waterloo’s Garage Capital and Chilligo Investments, participated in the seed round through a series of SAFEs. Each of those investors saw their SAFEs converted and made follow-on investments as part of the Series A, according to BinSentry CEO Randall Schwartzentruber.

BinSentry is co-founded and led by Schwartzentruber and CTO Nathan Hoel. It has developed an IoT sensor that helps farmers, and the feed producers that supply them, track feed bin inventory. The startup claims that its small sensors dramatically increase operational efficiencies for feed producers that deliver their product to farms.

“BinSentry has been founded to essentially replace the standard for feed bin monitoring across the industry,” Schwartzentruber told BetaKit in a recent interview.

“BinSentry sort of flips the industry upside down and begins to provide that information and projections around when feed bins are going to be empty, which really, for the first time ever enables feed mills to begin to operate proactively as opposed to reactively,” the CEO added.

Feed bins are structures found on farms that store a variety of livestock feeds. That feed is supplied and transported by producers like CP Group and Cargill. In the not-so-distant past, farmers would monitor bin inventory by banging a rubber mallet on the side. They would then place orders with producers for refills.

Over the last number of years, tech-based products have become increasingly popular in the AgTech, and feed bin, industry as companies look to create more efficient food supply chains. BinSentry sees its sensors as the latest innovative solution to help feed producers personally monitor the bins, collect up-to-date information, and operate proactively.

“We find ourselves in a very interesting position in that increasing efficiencies in agriculture becomes all the more important when you are facing the type of crisis that COVID-19 has sort of thrust upon industry worldwide,” Schwartzentruber said.

“Even when things like this happen, people still need to continue to eat,” the CEO said, noting the potential for increased demand for BinSentry’s tech due to the pandemic. “The sustainability of our food supply system becomes all the more important when things like this are going on. One of the things that BinSentry helps our customers to do is operate more efficiently, which enables them to service [more] bins with a smaller staff.”

ST. LOUIS, MO - June 11, 2020

The firm has tapped JoAnn Brouillette for the role. She is managing partner and president of Demeter LP, an Indiana-based agribusiness. In addition, Brouillette is chair of the National Grain & Feed Association and a trustee of Purdue University.

“We’re very excited to welcome JoAnn to our investment team,” said David Taiclet, general partner and managing director at Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “Her impressive credentials will add further depth to our investment and operating experience in working with growth stage companies in the food and agriculture sectors.”

Launched in 2019, Lewis & Clark AgriFood provides later-stage venture investments and growth capital to agriculture and food companies.

Brouillette’s appointment comes as Lewis & Clark AgriFood continues to grow its operations. Lewis & Clark AgriFood launched as part of Lewis & Clark Partners (LACP), which was created by Tom Hillman, Brian Hopcraft and David Taiclet. LACP also includes local venture capital firm Lewis & Clark Ventures.

Lewis & Clark AgriFood earlier this year had its first exit and has started to invest from its new AgriFood Fund II and Rural Business Investment Co. funds. It has raised a combined $186 million for the two funds, according to regulatory filings. The Lewis & Clark founders developed the agrifood investment arm to expand upon their venture capital firm’s expertise in the food and agriculture industries, seeking to develop a broader funding strategy to target the two industries.

ST. LOUIS, MO - January 14, 2020

St. Louis-based investment firm Lewis & Clark AgriFood has made its first investments from a pair of new private equity funds.

The firm has invested in Fargo, North Dakota-based agtech startup Bushel Inc. The investment was part of a $19.5 million Series B financing closed by Bushel, a developer of agricultural software for use by grain retailers and growers. The portion of the round from Lewis & Clark AgriFood came from the firm’s AgriFood Fund II and Rural Business Investment Co. (RBIC) funds.

“We have the great privilege to work with Bushel and their entire team in the effort to develop technology solutions for consumers, grain buyers and producers,” said David Taiclet, general partner and managing director at Lewis & Clark AgriFood. “The investment in Bushel aligns with Lewis & Clark AgriFood’s thesis of building integrity across the supply chain by providing increased transaction visibility for all stakeholders.”

Lewis & Clark AgriFood is part of Lewis & Clark Partners (LACP), which was created by Tom Hillman, Brian Hopcraft and Taiclet. LACP also includes local venture capital firm Lewis & Clark Ventures. Lewis & Clark AgriFood focuses on growth and late-stage investments in the food and agriculture sectors. Taiclet and Hillman are its general partners.

The company in recent weeks made regulatory filings detailing a total of $186.1 million in venture capital its hoping to invest from its two private equity funds. A December regulatory filing shows the RBIC fund raised $76.4 million and another filing last week indicates AgriFood fund hauled in a total of $109.7 million.

Lewis & Clark AgriFood’s RBIC fund is part of a U.S. Department of Agriculture investment program designed to inject capital into rural areas. The program stipulates that a minimum of 75% of funds must be invested in rural areas with a population of 50,000 or less and a minimum of 50% invested in smaller enterprises. Only 10% of the funds can be invested in urban areas.

As it has sprouted its RBIC fund, Lewis & Clark Ventures has added an executive well-versed in the USDA investment program. Tim Hassler, who was previously responsible for the $150 million RBIC fund at St. Louis-based Advantage Capital, in June was named principal of Lewis & Clark Ventures.