Investments in Farm Tech grew by 40% growth leaders - biotechnology and agriculture
As devastating as the pandemic has been, some good has emerged from the global health and economic crisis: investment to shore up global food systems has soared. Back in February we confirmed the extent of the boost investors gave entrepreneurs across the foodtech and agtech industry — 34.5% year-over-year to be precise.
And while we noticed a surge in investor interest in “upstream” technologies, those operating closer to the farm and in food production — alternative proteins, for instance — we now have numbers that show particular investor interest in technologies for farmers.
“Farm Tech” investing soared to $7.9 billion in 2020, topping 2019 investments by $2.3 trillion, or 41%, according to AgFunder’s 2021 Farm Tech Investment Report, in collaboration with Upstream Ag Insights.
To put this in perspective, Farm Tech’s acceleration was about six percentage points greater than agrifoodtech overall — that's foodtech and farm tech combined — and 37 percentage points higher than global VC’s year-over-year increase in 2020 (which Crunchbase pegged at just 4%.)
Much of the investment activity was led by two sectors: Ag Biotechnology and Novel Farming Systems (mostly the indoor farming of crops and insects). Investors pumped more than $1.5 billion into each category. Ag Biotech companies attracted particular interest from investors: 173 deals closed, representing 58% growth from 2019. Novel Farming Systems deal activity grew by 47% year-over-year.
As difficult as 2020 was globally (2021 hasn’t been pretty in many parts of the world), the pandemic seems to have buoyed Farm Tech because it “exposed cracks in the industrial agricultural system,” particularly the vulnerability of the food supply chain, Infarm’s CEO Erez Galonza said in the report. The German hyper-local vertical farming venture, whose modular units can be found in grocery stores across Europe, secured $170 million from investors last year.
Aug. 2, 2021