Serra Ventures and Grondex International Partner Up for Next Ag & Food Tech Fund

Champaign, IL, January 9, 2024-- Serra Ventures, LLC, a Champaign-based venture capital firm with offices in San Diego, Chicago and Park City, announced in the first week of 2024 that it has partnered with Grondex International, B.V., a Netherlands-based farmland management firm, to create the Serra-Grondex Ag & Food Tech Fund II, LP.

The directors of Grondex, Joost Pennings and Peter Prins, bring a wealth of agriculture and finance experience to the relationship. They manage thousands of acres of farmland and farm operations for institutional investors in Europe. The three managing partners of Serra, Tim Hoerr, Dennis Beard and Rob Schultz, each boast more than a decade of venture experience in food and ag technology, having invested in over 50 ag tech start-ups since 2011. The partnership brings together two strong teams with over 150 years of collective experience that will work in tandem on all aspects of the Serra-Grondex Ag & Food Tech Fund II, including deal sourcing, financing transactions, and post-investment coaching of portfolio companies.

"We are very excited about this powerful partnership with Grondex. Joost Pennings is a world-renowned agricultural economist at Wageningen University and Former Faculty Excellence Professor at University of Illinois. His colleague Peter Prins is an experienced risk manager, data analytics expert and practitioner of cutting-edge farming techniques. We see tremendous value combining our ag tech venture expertise with this experienced team from the Netherlands, one of the world's leading ag and food ecosystems,” said Tim Hoerr, CEO of Serra Ventures. “As Europe’s leading regenerative farming asset manager, Grondex offers unmatched insight and reach into the Ag and Food space from a global perspective. We look forward to solving the world’s biggest problems in Ag and Food together.”

"We are thrilled to join forces with Serra Ventures,” says Peter Prins, co-director at Grondex International. “Our shared commitment to foster regenerative solutions in the Ag and Food Tech sector is more than a business venture; it's a step towards a healthy and sustainable future. We look forward to build upon Serra Ventures’ impressive track record and to extend Serra’s network to Europe. Together, we aim to support founders that transform the Ag and Food industry, fostering startup growth that benefits both the economy and the planet."

About Serra Ventures, LLC

Serra Ventures is a venture capital firm investing in early-stage technology companies throughout the U.S. and in selected international regions. Its most recent focus has been on the Ag Tech and Food Tech sectors. The profile of an ideal startup for consideration by Serra is a Series Seed Plus, A or B company that has successfully achieved product-market fit with a novel product offering and is demonstrating strong revenue growth.

Serra Ventures has offices in San Diego, Chicago, Park City, and Champaign, Illinois. The managing partners are former successful entrepreneurs who seek to serve their portfolio companies with real-world insight, hard work, and a valuable network. In addition to capital, Serra works alongside its entrepreneurs in all areas of growth from strategic planning and partnerships, through business development and capital formation. As portfolio companies scale, Serra co-invests with leading venture firms. For more information, visit www.serraventures.com.

About Grondex International, B.V.

Grondex is Europe’s leading regenerative farming asset manager based in the Netherlands. The firm purchases land and uses regenerative farming and rewilding practices to improve nature, reduce emissions and capture carbon. By doing so Grondex generates strong environmental and financial returns.

The Grondex directors support startup founders with a great network in the agricultural and food industries that includes key relationships with major food processors and retailers. Their unique knowledge of the supply chain – from farm to fork – brings a distinct competitive advantage to their constituents. For more information, visit www.grondex.com.

OnRamp AgTech Conference Held in Champaign; Serra a Presenting Sponsor

The last week of July marked the much anticipated OnRamp Agriculture Conference, which was attended by nearly 400 guests. The third annual run of this event, the conference was an exciting opportunity for the Champaign-Urbana community, being the first to host it in person, and bringing the industry’s leading corporations, startups and investors together all in the name of celebrating the future of Ag.

The event kicked off on Monday evening with a dinner and keynote presentation, with Serra CEO Tim Hoerr acting as emcee. The following day was the all-day event, consisting of several talks, a keynote presentation, tours, and afternoon meetings where investors and companies could connect.

Rob Schultz, Managing Partner with Serra, hosted a talk on Tip, Trends and Traps in the Ag space. It was a tremendous experience, exploring and learning from business and industry leaders in the Ag space. Serra Ventures is proud to have been a presenting sponsor of this event.

Serra Ventures Raises Over $45M For Ag Tech Fund

Serra Ventures announced on Friday, January 28, that its latest fund, the Serra Capital Ag Tech Fund, has closed over $45 million in funding commitments.

The team at Serra had tremendous support from nearly 100 Limited Partners, many of which are investors in previous Serra funds, as well as several new investors. The Serra Capital Ag Tech Fund is pleased to have the support of corporate and institutional investors, including Busey Bank, AgriFab, Otterbox, Brandt, Mons Investments, and the Illinois Growth and Innovation Fund.

“The Serra team is very encouraged with the great show of support from our core base of limited partners as well as several investors that are new to us,” said Rob Schultz, Managing Partner. “To see the number of institutional investors joining the growing list of Serra limited partners means the world to us. We’re truly grateful.”

The Serra Ventures team has been deeply involved in the Ag Tech category for some time, making its first investments in the space in 2010. The steady increase in quantity and quality of Ag Tech deals in its evaluation pipeline, along with notable exits of other portfolio companies in the space (640 Labs, Label Insight and Agrible), convinced the team to create a standalone fund with the singular focus of agriculture technology and agri-food technology.

The next five to seven years in agriculture will bear witness to perhaps the most significant revolution in the application of technology to the industry’s most serious challenges. The Serra team is reviewing market trends, gathering front-line industry data and considering numerous investment opportunities. Each of these elements is part of constructing the Ag Tech Portfolio in an intentional and thoughtful manner.

“We are seeing exceptional deal flow, as we expected,” commented Dennis Beard, Managing Partner. “In 2021, over $12 billion was invested by venture firms in the ag tech sector, a 137% increase from 2020. This is a great indication of the significant number of high-quality ag tech and agri-food tech companies that are attracting investors.”

Over the course of its initial fund year, Serra made nine portfolio investments:

Barn2Door – Barn2Door is a vertical SaaS platform that helps farmers save time and grow sales by managing inventory online and automating orders across web, social, mobile, and email.

DroneSeed – DroneSeed is paid per acre to plant tree seed vessels after a wildfire -- using heavy-lift drone swarms resulting in the creation of highly-valuable ex-ante carbon credits sold to corporations seeking carbon neutrality.

Earth Optics – Earth Optics uses ground penetrating radar to build a global soil cloud for more sustainable agricultural management, providing revolutionary insights into soil health and management.

Hypercell Technologies – Hypercell believes that the best chance to stop future pandemics in humans is to prevent it by proactivity controlling viruses in production animal reservoirs. Hypercell has developed new tools to control infectious diseases in animals.

iUNU – Connecting plants, facilities, and people through a single interface, iUNU’s product Luna turns commercial greenhouses into precise, predictable, demand-based manufacturers.

Provision Analytics – Provision offers software that uses simple digital forms to automate food safety and advance quality control.

Swarm Engineering – Swarm solves highly-complex, multi-variant food supply chain challenges utilizing SaaS software and open source A.I. algorithms to significantly increase efficiencies and savings.

Veritas Substrates – Veritas Substrates offers proprietary substrates for vertical, indoor and other potted farming methods which results in increased yields and reduced carbon footprint.

Vytelle - Vytelle is developing genetic data and IVF technologies for cattle breeding.

The Serra team is extremely pleased with the current portfolio and will be making additional investments through 2022 and 2023 with the goal of funding at least 25 companies.

Tim Hoerr, CEO and Managing Partner, commented, “Serra has enjoyed a decade of success in venture with a series of multi-sector, early-stage focused funds. As our first sector-specific vehicle, the Serra Capital Ag Tech Fund has resonated profoundly with the investment community. It’s a sector that touches each of our lives every single day. To support the companies that are bringing the most innovative solutions to the most pressing problems in Agriculture and Food is extremely gratifying.”