Private investments have faced significant challenges during the past 18 months, but Shiri Ailon, head of group synergies and ventures at Syngenta Group Ventures, says her corporate venturing team has been able to navigate these difficult market conditions.
“We are still recovering from the capital hangover of 2020-21. During this challenging period, we are working with our portfolio companies to emphasise profitability and sustainable business models, ensuring they have the necessary financial runway to steer these uncertain times,” says Ailon.
Despite these challenges, the team has maintained a steady pace of investments over the past year. “In the past 12 months, we have completed five investments, both new and follow-ons, and we are currently in the process of evaluating one more deal,” says Ailon.
Syngenta Group Ventures was founded in 2009 and invests in the future of agriculture and food technology. The firm currently has 16 companies in its portfolio, including Greeneye Technology, a precision spraying company that raised $20m earlier this year, and ProducePay, an agricultural cross-border financial services platform that raised $38m in February.
The investment arm aims to position Syngenta Group, the global agricultural technology company headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, at the leading edge of technology and business model innovation.
Ailon has led Syngenta Group Ventures for four years, following a 15-year tenure with Adama Agricultural Solutions, one of the four business units of Syngenta Group. Adama is Syngenta Group’s crop protection subsidiary, offering a range of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. At Adama, Ailon led the company’s mergers and acquisitions operations and in her final five years she held the position of vice president of corporate development and China Integration.
Syngenta Group Ventures has a team of four management directors, situated in North America and Switzerland, where Ailon is based with her team.
“Having first-hand exposure to innovation in our industry and assisting enthusiastic and creative entrepreneurs in bringing technologies to life that ultimately help farmers and address complex climate challenges is incredibly rewarding”
“We have a highly professional team and our four managing directors have been with us for several years. We believe our team size is well-suited for our activities and investment scope,” says Ailon.
Ailon has worked hard to foster a strong and collaborative team spirit at the unit. “Our weekly team meetings are thought-provoking and enjoyable. Feeling valuable and appreciated is crucial for retaining staff and fostering an energising team spirit,” she says.
The team works closely with the research and development and strategy teams at the various business units of Syngenta. “We frequently introduce corporate business units to startups and technologies that
we come across, and our team members are often invited to participate in high- profile strategic discussions and innovation projects,” says Ailon.
After four years in her role, Ailon remains as passionate about corporate venture capital as when she started. “Having first-hand exposure to innovation in our industry and assisting enthusiastic and creative
entrepreneurs in bringing technologies to life that ultimately help farmers and address complex climate challenges is incredibly rewarding,” she says.
One of the biggest challenges of the role, she says, is introducing innovative and disruptive technologies to business units which may not be used to working with startups.
“Corporates may not always be enthusiastic about adopting disruptive technologies that could potentially have a negative short-term impact on the business. Our mission is to enlighten the organisation, encouraging them to acknowledge and understand technologies that, despite being
disruptive, need to be embraced and require careful planning,” she says.
The Syngenta Group Ventures team regularly participates in events such as the World Agri-tech Summit in San Francisco, London and São Paulo. They also attend AgriVest in Israel, as well as various private VC events.
“Building and maintaining our agtech ecosystem is a fundamental aspect of our work and we devote significant time to its development and nurturing,” says Ailon.
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