Godrej Group, an India-based conglomerate, is providing the cornerstone investment to its early stage corporate venturing fund being launched to invest in agricultural technology start-ups.
Omnivore Capital is raising $50m and Godrej, through its Agrovet agriculture division, will commit 10% to the fund and act as its general partner.
Omnivore has hired Atish Babu from his role as a vice president at local venture capital firm Nexus India Partners to be an investment partner and is expected to recruit a team of four or five in total.
Mark Kahn, executive vice president for strategy and business development at Godrej Agrovet, in an interview with Indian news provider VCCircle, said: "We are looking to invest in start-ups that will be game changers for farmers in the developing world. Raising agricultural yields is one of the greatest challenges of our times. We see Omnivore Capital as a vehicle which can have a huge impact on changing the way agricultural R&D gets backed by the private sector."
VCCircle said Omnivore would invest in themes, including sustainable substitutes for urea fertilizer, super low-cost drip irrigation, and highly scalable marine-culture technologies, rather than food processing, bio-fuel operations or organic food. Omnivore will typically invest $2m to $3m per round between seed and series B and up to about $6m over the company’s life primarily in India but also in North America-based companies that have technology to be transferred to emerging markets.