Anterra Capital, the Netherlands-based, food-focused venture capital firm spun out of financial services firm Rabobank’s VC unit, added $75m yesterday to a fund that is now $200m in size.
Rabo Ventures spun Anterra off in 2013 with funding from Moonray Investors, a subsidiary of financial services group Fidelity, and the firm confirmed yesterday that Rabobank and Fidelity unit Eight Roads Ventures remain as its backers.
Anterra invests across the food and agriculture supply chain, providing up to $20m in funding per company. It closed its first fund at $125m in March 2016 and has built a portfolio of 11 companies including crop protection technology specialist AgriMetis and gene editing technology developer Caribou Bioscience.
The extra capital was announced in tandem with investments of undisclosed size in Agriconomie, the France-based operator of an e-commerce platform for farmers, and Voltea, a Netherlands-based desalination system developer that had raised $5.5m in a 2015 series B round.
Adam Anders, Anterra Capital’s managing partner, said: “The global food system is the largest employer in the world, has the greatest impact on the environment, and represents a massive portion of consumer spend. The value of innovation within it cannot be ignored.
“We extended the fund to capitalise on this overlooked but incredible opportunity and to expand our team.”
In addition to the new capital, Anterra has in the past year hired Axel Wehr from Bain Capital Private Equity as principal and Dan Harburg, formerly director of business development for robotics technology provider Soft Robotics, as a venture associate.