April 3, 2019

RIO Investment Partners has announced the launch of a new venture capital fund dedicated to investments across the North American ag and food tech sectors.

Concurrently, the fund also announced its first close with anchor investments of $77.5 million from cornerstone investors including Farm Credit Canada. An eventual funding target for the fund is set at $150 million of total committed capital.

Co-founded by Aki Georgacacos and Jean Francois Huc, RIO is a successor of Avrio Capital, and existing Avrio equity and sub-debt funds will continue to function under the Avrio name.

“The creation of RIO represents a bold vision for agri-food tech venture capital investing,” said Georgacacos. “In today’s competitive environment, firms are either growing or shrinking and as a consequence, evolution is essential.”

Several leaders from the Avrio management team are now with RIO, including Georgacacos, as co-founder and managing director; Steven Leakos, as managing director; Johathan Goodkey as principal; and Huc, as co-founder and managing director.

“As the team considered its future, and notwithstanding the enormous success of the Avrio funds, we saw a unique opportunity to rebrand and establish the foundations of a global agri-food investment vehicle,” said Georgacacos.

“The deployment of capital at the intersection of technology and the agri-food value chain has never been more compelling,” said Huc. “ I am excited to be joining the RIO team as the sector reaches an inflection point and reveals tremendous opportunities to build transformative companies.”

Active for more than 15 years in the food and ag technology investment space, Avrio is one of the oldest existing venture capital franchises in Canada, with $250 million across three funds, the largest of which closed in 2016 at C$110 million (US$82.5 million). Its history of agriculture and food technology investments include Brookside, Wolf Trax Inc., Hortau, and Farmers Edge Inc. In 2015 the fund made news through the windfall it gained from its exit of Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods to Compass Diversified Holdings, for $132.5 million. The company went on to be acquired by Canadian cannabis cultivator, producer, researcher, and distributor, Tilray Inc., in February of this year for $318 million.

From its offices in Calgary and Montreal, RIO will invest between $3 million and $10 million in growth-stage companies looking to further their expansion strategies. All stages of the ag and food tech value and supply chain will be considered for backing, from agricultural production to protein technologies, CRISPR, logistics, e-commerce platforms, and emerging healthy food brands.

“Our desire to operate as a true platform, to invest more comprehensively in our sector and across a broader territory all pointed towards creating and branding a new fund,” said Georgacacos from the Calgary office.  “These fundamental objectives, coupled with our well-established tenants of investing in best-in-class management teams and transformative technologies, underpin RIO’s investment strategy.”

-Lynda Kiernan