BERLIN, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Astanor Ventures, a backer of German vertical farmer InFarm and French i
BERLIN, Nov 20 (Reuters) – Astanor Ventures, a backer of German vertical farmer InFarm and French insect breeder Ynsect, mentioned on Friday it had raised a $325 million fund to put money into sustainable meals, agriculture and ocean expertise startups.
The fund will again ventures that search to make the meals provide extra resilient whereas decreasing the affect of agriculture on the atmosphere – vulnerabilities that Astanor says have been uncovered by the coronavirus pandemic.
“It is by no means been clearer that there is a direct connection between the meals that we eat and the atmosphere that we reside in,” mentioned Eric Archambeau, co-founder and companion of Astanor Ventures.
“When one a part of the ecosystem that connects farmers, customers, livestock, rivers, seas, soil, crops and air turns into broken, all components undergo.”
All investments will assist the United Nations’ Sustainable Growth Targets, adopted by the worldwide group in 2015 to struggle poverty, defend the atmosphere and guarantee prosperity for all by 2030.
Astanor cited figures that agriculture generates a 3rd of all greenhouse gases and consumes 70% of the world’s recent water, whereas 40% of meals produced goes to waste or by no means makes it to market.
Archambeau and co-founder George Coelho beforehand launched enterprise capital fund Balderton Capital and had been, amongst others, early buyers in music streaming service Spotify SPOT.N.
Since being based in 2017, Astanor has invested in additional than 20 European and U.S. startups – it was the lead investor in French insect farming enterprise Ynsect and not too long ago backed Berlin-based city farming startup InFarm.
European enterprise capital funds have raised 5.9 billion euros ($7 billion) within the present yr thus far. That makes 2020 a document yr already, beating the earlier document of 5.5 billion euros in 2018, in line with startup tracker Dealroom.co.
($1 = 0.8419 euros)
(Reporting by Douglas Busvine; Enhancing by Kirsten Donovan)
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