April 27, 2017

California-based agtech venture capital firm Finistere Ventures is expanding its presence into Israel with the addition of two venture partners in-country.

In line with the firm’s determined global expansion, Finistere has brought on Gil Meron and Eyal Rosenthal to explore agtech investments and to strengthen its partnerships in what the firm considers a key region.

Founded in 2005, Finistere is a leading venture capital investor in agtech, and life science-focused businesses through its offices in Palo Alto and San Diego. Over the past two decades the firm’s team has built a portfolio of some of the most successful agtech companies including CropX – a Tel Aviv and San Francisco-based irrigation management agtech startup; Shopwell, a free U.S.-based personalized app for retail food shoppers that helps health-conscious consumers make more informed purchasing decisions; ZeaKal, a San Diego-based ag biotech startup that is seeking to increase agricultural output through the integration of its PhotoSeed™ technology; Radicle, a $15 million food and ag tech accelerator that partners with innovative entrepreneurs and innovative initiatives in the food and ag chain; and Plenty, a non-GMO, local produce startup.

“As the way people grow, produce, market, and consume food around the world evolves, it is a time of unprecedented change in the agriculture industry,” said Arama Kukutai, co-founder and partner at Finistere Ventures. “We see Israel as a center of excellence in AgTech. Both Gil and Eyal worked closely with us on first investments in Israel, and we think having them on our team will help advance our mission as we continue to invest in Israeli disruptors across the agricultural and food value chains.”

A Dynamic Presence

Since 2015 Finistere has been a dynamic presence in the agtech investment space. In February of that year the firm announced the closing of Finistere II – it’s latest $150 million agtech investment fund established in collaboration with Bayer CropScience and AVAC Ltd. The fund  focuses on backing early stage agtech businesses developing technologies in food production, sustainability, and nutrition across North America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel – all countries noted by Finistere as having strong agtech R&D pipelines.

Later, in July of last year, Agrium, a global leader in the production and distribution of agricultural products, services, and solutions announced it has made an investment as a limited partner in Finistere Ventures Fund II.

“We believe this investment will significantly enhance Agrium’s ability to access and evaluate the pipeline of rapidly evolving agricultural technologies, which will enable us to continue expanding our strong portfolio of innovative products and solutions for growers,” commented Agrium’s President & CEO Chuck Magro in a company statement.

Magro continued, “Further, Agrium will join a core group of leading, strategic investors in Finistere across the agriculture, farming and food industries, which will provide access to unique collaboration and partnership opportunities.”

Additionally, in April of last year, the firm partnered with institutional farmland owner and manager International Farming Corporation (IFC) to launch agtech equity growth fund Willow Hill Ventures.

Willow Hill Ventures is a growth equity-focused vehicle that will capitalize on the diverse tools brought by Finistere and IFC. By nature of IFC’s involvement, the fund is connected with a widespread base of several million acres of farmland owned or influenced by IFC across 20 U.S. states. This acreage will help serve as an on-farm innovation ecosystem to be used by the fund’s portfolio companies. Through the fund’s integrated on-farm testing and development capabilities – combined with access to the expertise offered by IFC’s agronomy, technical, and operational teams – companies that Willow Hill invests in will build market traction, with their technologies reaching scale with already-established validation, certification, and recommendation which in turn will increase farmer adoption.

New Additions

Finistere sees a fundamental need for capital to support agtech innovation on a global scale.

“This is a $3 trillion-dollar industry that we have globally producing food for the planet and absolutely has always been the recipient of trickle-down technology from other fields,” Finistere co-founder and Partner Arama Kukutai told GAI News in an interview following the first close of Finistere II Agtech Fund. “But we see real significant unmet demand for smart capital in the space. There are fundamental resource and quality issues that are out there around need for agricultural products, but we also see that the sector is underserved by innovation capital.”

To help Finistere fill the capital gap within the space, Meron and Rosenthal bring a deep understanding and pool of experience in the Israeli agtech sector. They have worked with the Israeli innovation sector and have worked on behalf of the International Finance Corporation (the World Bank Group) on agtech investments both domestically in Israel and internationally.

Meron previously served as general manager of Yarden Group, where he advised clients from Israel and beyond, and drove a range of clean tech and agtech investments. Before Yarden, Meron was a consultant with Boston Consulting Group where he advised world-class companies in a strategic capacity.

Rosenthal spent more than a decade as a managing director of Infinity Equity Group, where he led its cross-border investments between Israel and China. He also served on the Board of Technoplus Ventures for the past six years.

“We look forward to working even more closely with the Finistere team to help cultivate the next crop of technology game changers for the agriculture industry,” noted Meron.

“Finistere’s global reach in the AgTech community is unmatched, and growing its footprint in Israel, a nation at the forefront of the AgTech frontier, is critical,” said Rosenthal.

-Lynda Kiernan

Lynda Kiernan is Editor with GAI Media and daily contributor to GAI News. If you would like to submit a contribution for consideration please contact Ms. Kiernan at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.