By Lynda Kiernan, Global AgInvesting Media
SHIFT Invest announced it has raised another EUR23 million in the second close of its impact fund SHIFT III. This capital not only brings the fund to EUR 70 million – twice the size of its predecessor – but also makes it the largest early stage VC fund in the Netherlands.
The human population continues to put ever increasing pressure on the biodiversity of our world, as climate change intensifies. SHIFT Invest understands that solutions must come from multiple directions – academia, governments, businesses, and international institutions, and sees disruptive technologies and new directions of approach as necessary and key responses to the challenges that face us.
However, for these technologies and solutions to be realized and scaled, and for new approaches to be effective, capital is required.
Together with the country’s technical universities and the Dutch research institute TNO, SHIFT III identifies the most promising technologies being developed by high-performing and dynamic teams disrupting the ag and food, bio-based, and environmentally high-burden value chains.
Once targeted, SHIFT III typically invests in these ventures at the concept, Seed, or Series A stages, however, it also is open to committing follow-on investments in its portfolio companies through Series B and Series C stages until exit.
SHIFT III’s first close happened in February 2020 including Rabo Corporate Investments, Dutch regional development funds, family offices, Wageningen U&R and other universities, along with additional entrepreneurs.
“We are seeing an increasing amount of family offices and corporates realizing that their contribution is needed for the urgent shift to a different and circular economy,” said Florentine Fockema Andreae, partner at SHIFT Invest.
This latest close, which will enable SHIFT III to be more ambitious and to effect greater impact, adds new investors including the European Investment Fund (EIF) which fosters investment in SHIFT III’s targeted areas and has expressed a commitment to the fund for the coming years, and Corbion.
“At Corbion, addressing climate change is a business opportunity,” said Marcel Wubbolts, chief science & sustainability officer, Corbion. “We are very excited to join this impact focused innovation platform as this fits seamlessly with our Advance 2025 strategy that is focused around preserving what matters. Open innovation is essential in the transition toward a world in which our planet’s natural boundaries are respected.”
SHIFT is a pioneer in impact investing, starting its first impact fund in 2009 – long before impact investing had even been coined – backing Protix, ChainCraft, and Vandebron, among others.
“Climate change is on top of the agenda also for the financing world,” said Alain Godard, CEO, EIF. “The European Investment Fund fully supports the development of a European environmentally-conscious VC ecosystem, which can stimulate the emergence and market introduction of groundbreaking innovation with a positive and fundamental impact on climate and the environment. Such an ecosystem could significantly contribute to societal and economic change.”
Behind its goal of “Turning investments into impact”, and “bringing back the balance between nature and society through innovation”, SHIFT ‘s fund management (New Balance Impact Investors – NBI), which manages five venture capital funds, can call upon long-lasting relationships, extensive experience in venture capital, and a strong reputation to meet its mission through capital deployment.
The Netherlands might be a small country, but it has an outsized presence in global agriculture, and therefore is a prime geography for impact investing in the food and ag spaces. Following only the U.S., the Netherlands is the second largest ag exporter in the world – exporting agricultural goods valued at $111 billion in 2017, including $7.4 billion in vegetables.
How is this achieved? Through the old saying “necessity is the mother of invention”.
“Holland is pretty crowded,” Ad van Adrichem, general manager for Duijvestijn Tomatoes – a hydroponic grower that uses geothermal energy to lessen its environmental impact, noted to the World Economic Forum. “Our land is quite expensive and labour is expensive, so we have to be more efficient than others to compete. And that competition drives innovation and technology.”
Considering if efficiency levels in food production stay stagnant, the recent World Resources Report found that feeding the global population by 2050 would mean, “clearing most of the world’s remaining forests, wiping out thousands more species, and releasing enough greenhouse gas emissions to exceed the 1.5°C and 2°C warming targets enshrined in the Paris Agreement – even if emissions from all other human activities were entirely eliminated.”
This conclusion only reinforces the great need for innovation and advancement of agtech integration in the world’s leading agricultural producers, such as the Netherlands.
– Lynda Kiernan is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and Agtech Intel News, and HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She is also a contributor to the GAI Gazette. She can be reached at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com
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