France-based venture capital firm Seventure Partners has raised €24m ($29.7m) for the first close of a food-focused fund which has secured animal feed additive producer Adisseo as its cornerstone investor.
The fund will invest across Europe, North America and Israel but is also open to particularly promising pitches from other regions including Asia. Seventure has not disclosed a final target size for the vehicle.
Seventure will provide funding for companies in the animal health, feed and nutrition sectors, as well as those developing digital technologies covering smart breeding, control and traceability of agriculture and livestock.
The firm expects advances in the livestock supply chain to be driven by global population growth, increased demand for animal protein in emerging countries and higher expectations of environmentally sustainable food produce.
Technological innovations in agriculture will be needed to meet climate change and resource scarcity while animal health gains could help improve the digestibility, nutrition and traceability of foods.
Seventure had previously closed a $175m corporate-backed fund called Health for Life Capital in 2015 which focused on human-side health, nutrition and food as well as microbiome and digital innovation.