Bill Pescatello, founder of Evolv Ventures, the $100m venture capital fund backed by Kraft Heinz to invest in the food industry, has rejoined VC firm Lightbank.
Prior to joining Evolv, Pescatello, a former GCV Rising Stars award winner, had spent seven years at Lightbank where he partnered serial entrepreneurs Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell.
At Evolv, he led investments in Parsable, Flowhub, Outrider and Fabric. The other general partner at Evolv is Steve Sanger, a former business development executive behind GrubHub’s success.
There has been increased attention in agriculture and food tech ventures. Listen, another Chicago-based venture firm that invests in consumer-facing startups and which is backed by local heavyweight firm Pritzker Organization, closed on $92m in capital commitments across two new funds.
It raised $62m for an early-stage fund and $30m in an opportunity-type fund to invest up to $5m into a dozen different brands. It previously backed Calm, Catch Co, and Dame.
