Some $645 million has been raised across private equity and venture capital funds by London-based sustainable food and agriculture investment firm Cibus Capital.
The specialist investment advisory firm said more than $510 mln has been committed to its second mid-market private equity fund, Cibus Fund II (CF II), at its second close, and over $135 mln to its second venture fund, Cibus Enterprise Fund II (CE II).
These vehicles follow the first funds in each category, private equity Cibus Fund I and venture capital Cibus Enterprise Fund I. These have raised around $500 mln including co-investment commitments, Rob Appleby, CIO of Cibus Capital told Carbon Pulse.
“The agricultural sector is ripe for innovation, with the pace of disruptive technologies coming to the fore continuing to accelerate,” Appleby said.
“Subsectors we are really excited about in the agri-tech space include advanced, autonomous robotics, utilising the latest AI and machine learning algorithms.”
Cibus is also interested in the “revolution” in the biological space in areas such as advanced genomic manipulation, he said.
The latest fundraising effort attracted investments of undisclosed sizes from institutional investors including Los Angeles County Employee Retirement Association (LACERA), and Retail Employees Superannuation Trust (Rest Super), one of Australia’s largest profit-to-member pension funds.
“Farmers and landowners have taken centre stage in the debate about food security and environmental conservation,” Appleby said.
Thousands of farmers from France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium protested by barricading the streets around buildings in Brussels with tractors last month.
“This coincides with a clearer view of the risks and opportunities faced by investors and stakeholders alike in food production,” Appleby said.
Venture fund CE II has invested in 10 companies with the potential to “disrupt” food production, in fields including robotics, natural capital, and crop chemistry.
Alastair Cooper, head of venture at Cibus Capital, said: “Agrifood technology provides the potential for unprecedented positive change across resource efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, food security, human health, and animal welfare.”
In 2022, private equity fund CF II invested in Withcott Seedlings, an Australian supplier of vegetable seedlings, according to a Cibus sustainability report published in August.
Estimates for the contribution of livestock production to global greenhouse gas emissions range between 11% and 19%, according to an article from research organisation The Breakthrough Institute published last year.
On Monday, the FAIRR Initiative published a report on nature and climate solutions for sustainable livestock production.
Promising nature-based solutions that can address both climate and nature risks are “underfunded”, the report found. However, there are examples of investors acting on sustainable agriculture including initiatives involving AXA, Unilever, and Banque Populaire Caisse d’Epargne.
These solutions include animal feed additives to improve digestion, cover crops that improve soil health, and integrating trees with pastures, it said.
Read an interview with Cibus Capital’s head of natural capital on the company’s plans for a new land-focused natural capital strategy, published last month.
By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com
