In This Issue:
- Food Venture Financing Trends
- CPG Corporate Venture and Private Equity Funds
- Links to Relevant Content and Events
Food Venture Financing Trends
- TreeHouse Foods, a multinational food processing company, announced that it plans to sell one of its snack businesses and manufacturing plants to John B. Sanfilippo & Son. The deal is estimated to close within 30 days and is worth $63 million in cash. Eat Just, a foodtech company that produces plant-based eggs and cultivated chicken, raised approximately $16 million in its latest funding round.
- Pitango VC, an Israeli VC firm, announced that it raised $175 million in a new fund to dedicate investments in the foodtech, ag tech, healthtech, and life sciences sectors.
- The Kitchen Hub, a foodtech accelerator and corporate venture arm of Strauss Group, announced that it raised a new $70 million fund.
CPG Corporate Venture and Private Equity Fund
This week's featured corporate venture and private equity fund is Bimbo Ventures.
- Bimbo Ventures, formed in 2017, is the venture capital arm of Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV, the Mexico-based bakery goods giant.
- Bimbo Ventures has partnered with BlueBox Ventures to create an accelerator program called – the ELEVA Food Technology Accelerator by Bimbo, which is designed to provide innovative entrepreneurs what they need to develop and commercialize their product.
- Bimbo Ventures recently announced that it made an investment in Olyra Foods, a foodtech company that produces organic and nutritional breakfast biscuits, as part of the company’s $4 million round.
Links to Relevant Content and Events
ARTICLES
- AgFunderNews Round Table: Foodtech Investing in Focus, From ‘Tourist Capital’ to a ‘Return to Fundamentals’
- Agritech Vital For Net Negative Emissions in Food Industry, Study Shows
- Upside Foods Announces First Large-Scale Production Plant: Rubicon
- BFY Noodle Brand Goodles Raises $13 Million in Series A Round
- ReSeed Closes $4.6 Million Fundraise to Expand Commercial Market for Climate Financing and Real-World Social Impact
- Container Farming Startup Freight Farms to Go Public For $147 Million Via SPAC
UPCOMING EVENTS
Naturally Network
Expo East Pitch Slam After-Party presented by SPINS
Wednesday, September 20 | 7:00 – 10:00 p.m. ET
Attend the biggest party at the 2023 Expo East! Join the Naturally Network to celebrate all of their Pitch Slam candidates and this year's national winner at the Pitch Slam After-Party presented by SPINS.
You'll have a chance to mingle connect, and try appetizers from Philadelphia's innovative food purveyors at Reading Terminal just across from the convention center - plus enjoy a hosted beer and wine bar throughout the event!
Naturally North Bay
Finance Forum: Generative AI
Thursday, September 21 | 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. PT
Location: Russian River Brewing Company, Mitchell Lane 700, Windsor, CA
A three-person panel will be sharing: "How Generative A.I. will be impacting the CFO's department."
- Benefits of embracing Generative AI in the CFO's department.
- Evolving ERP software: New investments in software and training.
- Accounting research improvements.
- Issuing A.I. Internal User's Policy.
- Privacy & data concerns.
- Private versus Public AI tools for analysis and reporting.
- Verifying results of A.I. generated answers.
- Changing role of Audit/attest firm and function.
- Employee Training.
Software security once bad guys are armed with Generative A.I.!
Speakers:
- Moe Asgharnia, CIO at BPM, LLP
- Glenn Hopper, CFO/Director of Eventus Advisory Group
- Joshua Meiri, CTO at AppWrap, Inc
- Gassen Mosbahi, Partner at Moss Adams
- Suzy Taherian, CFO at Xpansiv
Naturally New York
Expo East Extravaganza
Thursday, September 21 | 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. ET
Location: NOTO Philadelphia, 1209 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA
Join Naturally New York for their first-ever Expo East event presented by Green Circle Capital Partners, Corient, BeyondBrands, ForceBrands, SG Credit Partners, and Konnect Agency.
Naturally Los Angeles
September Mixer
Monday, September 25 | 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. PT
Location: All Season Brewing Company, South La Brea Avenue 800, Los Angeles, CA
Who wants to play a little friendly Skeeball at All Season Brewing? Join Naturally Los Angeles for an informal evening of networking with other founders and executives in the Natural CPG community.
Naturally North Bay
QA+Operations Forum: Tour of Straus Family Creamery
Wednesday, September 27 | 9:00 – 10:30 a.m. PT
Location: Straus Family Creamery, 655 Park Court, Rohnert Park, CA
Join Naturally North Bay's QA + Operations Forum for a tour of Straus Family Creamery! Space is very limited for this forum tour!
Naturally Boulder
Mushrooms: Local Innovators Knowledge Drop
Wednesday, September 27 | 5:00 – 8:00 p.m. MT
Location: Boulder Chamber, Pearl Street 2440, Boulder, CO
Have you heard all the buzz around mushrooms lately? Do the words mycelium or fruiting body have you wanting to learn more? If you are mushroom-curious and want to learn more, we've got an educational event for you!
Topics being explored:
- Mushroom 101 knowledge on topics including terminology, varietals, how to grow your own mushrooms at home and decriminalization of psilocybin.
- Chemistry of extraction and how this differs from plant medicine and how you can determine product quality from a consumer perspective?
- Wildfire mitigation and the philosophy around negative waste.
Speakers:
- Bill Giebler, Content & Insights Director of Nutrition Business Journal
- Zach Hedstrom, Owner at Boulder Mushroom
- Shane Schoolman, CEO/Co-Founder/CWO of MyCOLove Far
- Tomas Vara, Co-Owner at Uncle John's Recipes
Naturally San Diego
BevNET + Naturally San Diego Meet-Up
Thursday, September 28 | 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. PT
Location: 2645 Financial Ct., Suite D, San Diego, CA
Join the Naturally San Diego community and the San Diego BevNET team, for two hours of beverages and light appetizers. We also encourage you to BYOS a.k.a. "bring your own samples". Industry professionals within the food, beverage, beer and beyond industries are invited to attend the free meetup.
Naturally New York
Creating a Mission-Minded Supply Chain
Thursday, September 28 | 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. ET
Location: Straus Family Creamery, 655 Park Court, Rohnert Park, CA
Establishing a resilient and sustainable supply chain is challenging for any company, much more so for a mission-driven, environmentally-focused organization.
In this session, Founder and CEO Philip Freeman will sit down with Emil Capital Partners' Director Melissa Dolan to discuss how Murphy's got its start and why its mission of 'Doing Others Good' has been central to establishing and growing its supply chain
Speakers:
- Melissa Dolan, Director of Emil Capital Partners
- Philip Freeman, Founder/CEO of Murphy's Naturals