It was exactly ten years ago that we launched Anterra in Amsterdam. When we started, nobody even bothered to measure the agrifoodtech market size. Now, annual investments are $30 billion per year. Our ever-growing community of entrepreneurs, investors, farmers, and food companies is giving their all to create a healthier, more resilient, and more sustainable food system.
So, what did our ten-year rollercoaster ride look like?
The world changed a lot. Food security moved from a thought to a priority. The realization has sunk in that food contributes to more than 25% of carbon emissions while simultaneously fuelling a global obesity pandemic.
We collected battle scars along the way, but seeing our family of companies making a difference in global food, it’s been worth it. ProducePay helped Latin American fresh produce growers send plus $3 billion of produce to the US last year; our first incubated company, Enko®, developed a potential “best in class” herbicide that could reduce RoundUp usage by 95%, and Jennifer Doudna did her Nobel prize-winning work with Caribou Biosciences.
It feels like a breach of trust to name just a few of the entrepreneurs we have backed in our first decade. Without their brilliance and drive, Anterra would be an empty vessel, so our congratulations to the teams behind Agriconomie.com, 5Metis, Inc., Animol Discovery, Inc., Ashish Life Science , Berkeley Yeast, BiomEdit, Dalma., Edge animal health, Farmobile, Invetx, It's Fresh!, Kate Farms LLC, La Fourche, Lollipop, Native Microbials, Inc., Orogen Therapeutics, Slingshot Biosciences, Smartwyre, Vestaron Corporation, Zebi AI.
Then, the Anterra team, whose dedication identified, incubated, and grew our portfolio companies. They are the most brilliant, motivated, and fun people I’ve worked with (Philip Austin, Maarten Goossens, Anneke Stelte, Neira Pekmez, Yorán Meijers, Brett Wong, Brett Chevalier, Michael Widmann, and Michael Topalian).
Through the years, Anterra transformed itself from investor to investor and incubator, building 6 successful companies from scratch, with our limited partners co-investing alongside us; for every dollar we put in our portfolio companies, they have added two more.
Our dream to accelerate the transformation of the food system would not have been possible without the initial support of Rabobank and Eight Roads, followed by many value-adding investors, including, Tattarang, Temasek, Novo Holdings, LGT Wealth Management, the UK EAPF.
Last but not least, I want to mention the F&A Next conference that Anterra co-founded with Rabobank, StartLife and Wageningen University & Research. It is heartening to see that it has developed into the premier European agrifood-tech conference.
A big thank you to all of you who made Anterra’s first ten years a success.
P.S.: To celebrate Anterra’s anniversary, we’ve treated ourselves to a new website. So, have a peek.
#4thFoodRevolution, #Anterra, #agtech, #foodsecurity
