 My name is Taryn Goodman. I am currently with the Nature Conservancy's new investment group NatureVest. As of a week ago, I was formerly with RSF Social Finance. NatureVest works to source opportunities in conservation, many of which that have social aspects, structure deals around them, bring in investors and scale and replicate those models. And a lot of the work that we're doing really builds off of what I did at RSF, where I was focused on shifting our food system and working in sustainable food and agriculture. And this panel came out of what I was seeing in the marketplace of a lot of money flowing to food and ag businesses, which was incredibly exciting. And so in case you were wondering, this is a panel on food and ag investing, I don't remember the exact title, so if you're not here for that, you're in trouble, but you can't leave now, so you're stuck. I want to start by laying some groundwork of what I was seeing. In 2013, there were 26 new private funds focused on food and agriculture that were launched. And investment in the sector grew 33% from 2012. In the first half of 2014, there was 3.9 billion with a B invested into private food tech and media companies through equity raises and acquisitions. So a lot of money flowing here. I am equally as excited to talk about this as I am the panelists that are up here. I'm slightly in awe and while we were waiting, I was picking their brains and trying to learn from them. I'll start with Danielle Gould. Danielle is the founder and CEO of Food and Tech Connect, a media company connecting food and technology innovators with the information and people they need to transform the food industry. Through news and analysis, events and research, she helps organizations use data, cross-disciplinary design and communication to cultivate a better future of food. I feel like I stalked Danielle because I follow her on Twitter and everything because everything she posts is really on point, so I highly recommend that. Next, I'll move to Ali. Ali is an angel investor, startup advisor and serial entrepreneur. His portfolio has included successes as far ranging as Zappos, Facebook, Dropbox and Opower. He is also a co-founder of Computer Education Nonprofit Code.org and an active investor in sustainable food systems, including Farm Ego, Bright Farms and Farmland LP. And Hampton Creek Foods. Samir Kal is a founding general partner at Coastal Ventures where he focuses on sustainability investing, including food and agriculture. I now realize why I didn't mention it, I was trying to create diversity. He has been a leading investor in Hampton Creek Foods, Sandhill Foods, Oscar Health, Sora, Vue and among any others. What's notable about Samir is he is also a Washington Rudskans fan, as am I, and so we're long suffering, long suffering. So I would love for you guys to just kind of, at a very high level, give me a bit about your work. What brought you to this work and why Food and Ag? Sure. My whole career has been in technology, but around four or five years ago I began really feeling that the food system, in particular in America, but really worldwide, the food system is broken and is nowhere near as efficient as it could be or as sustainable as it needs to be. And I began investing and networking and really became passionate about the idea of there's got to be better ways to feed the growing population that are not as wasteful or as inefficient. And I feel like the solutions are there and actually I feel like in many cases there's market-based, capitalism-based solutions that can work. And so I've been very excited about some of those, the ones that were just mentioned. So that's essentially my passion is finding opportunities where the better way of doing things, whether it's more sustainable or more helpful, is also more economical and therefore more profitable. Thanks. So I love food because food is everything. It's history, it's culture, it's finance, it's health, it's community. And so about six years ago I started working for a company called Bright Farm Systems, which designs rooftop greenhouses, at the time we designed rooftop greenhouses. And then four years ago I had this aha moment that where I realized that information technology was going to totally transform food because it would help us understand what was going on. We would have better data about what was going on and if we could harness that data, then we could make better informed decisions. So I started Food Tech Connect as a way to kind of explore these ideas and then started connecting people from the world, from food and technology together offline. And then what I realized, this real driver and the real need was that there is a lack of skills to be able to drive this new food economy forward. So a smarter, more efficient food economy that helps entrepreneurs and helps small businesses be successful and leverage technology to be successful. So my mission has become to educate people on how they can succeed in this new food economy. And I think that that's what is going to change the world because if we have entrepreneurs being successful and they learn how to build robust, profitable businesses, then they can turn around our existing system. Hi. So as many of you might know, coastal ventures, we were big investors early and continue in sustainability, a lot in renewable energy across a lot of the sectors. And investing in food is actually just an extension of that. It's an incredibly, the way food we raise and grow animals today is incredibly bad for the environment. It's got massive health repercussions that there's animal cruelty issues and there's land use issues. So it just seemed a natural extension of what we were doing in energy to bring food to food to the realm. And as investors kind of were, you know, we're prisoners of where the best entrepreneurs and the breast scientists decide to spend their time. And we were noticing about for maybe it was because Ali who had made so much money for himself a dropbox and face Facebook decided to invest, but we started to see that a lot of the best PhDs from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, we're all starting to inquire about food and start spending time in food. And so I think that's what's most exciting about the food area is the quality entrepreneurs that are entering it. Great. Thanks. So I'd love in each of your current purveys, you have fund investor, angel investor, and overall data cruncher, if you will. What are you seeing? What are the trends? What good and bad? What are you seeing? Where is this market going? Well, you're seeing a lot and it's widespread. But I think in the, Ali certainly knows a lot more about the ag space and farm space than I do. But on the food side, you're seeing two types of companies, I think broadly being formed. I think both are valuable and important. The first type are companies that are really going out there and marketing a healthier alternative, going for a really strong brand. And are I think going to be limited in their total upside or impact by the fact that they're going to just move a certain number of people to eat what they make. So it's not going to be a big tectonic shift or anything. It's going to be a small percentage. What we're looking for and we're seeing, you know, Hampton Creek, Ali and I are co-investors in and other companies like Impossible Foods that Professor Stanford started with us. What you're seeing there is how could you eliminate animal husbandry altogether so that, you know, why are we using such an inefficient way of delivering proteins to human beings by raising cattle using a third of all the land mass, tons of water, tons of environmental impact to do that, is can you go directly from plants to cheeses, eggs, meats that you otherwise would use out of animal farming and make it taste as good or better and make it cost the same. If you can deliver that, you have a massive shift. And then there, so there are some efforts there with lots of technology, lots of PhD, lots of IP. And that's where we're taking to focus most of our efforts. So since I'm the moderator, I'm going to change it up and just start asking questions. Do you agree with that considering your animal lag investments? I think I would agree that those are big opportunities. I don't feel like those are the only trends or the only opportunities and I'm not sure that's trying to exclude anything else. But I think that there's I have invested certainly in Hampton Creek and therefore believe in the idea of developing formulations that skip the animal altogether and a cookie that didn't involve animals or mayonnaise that didn't involve animals. But I also believe that there are going to be some people who will still want to eat meat and there's much, much better ways of raising animals that are in fact, not only healthier, but also better for the earth and in fact, more economical. And I think animals are actually a important part of the natural cycle and the nitrogen cycle and the various cycles that nutrients go through actually are more efficient if animals are part of it. And so I do think personally that animals still have a place in agriculture, but I would also agree that, you know, if you're going to have an animal, let's use it where it's really most relevant. You know, if someone wants a steak or eggs Benedict, but if you're eating a cookie, you don't really necessarily care whether that involves chickens or not. And so the Hampton Creek cookie, by choosing a single cookie, one cookie by Hampton Creek saves 12 quarts of water versus an ordinary cookie because it does not involve the enormous amount of resource waste on both the chickens and the dairy that went towards producing an ordinary cookie. So nobody, as a consumer, you don't know the difference. You're not choosing it because you want a certain taste. It's virtually indistinguishable to the consumer, but far more sustainable. And by the way, more affordable as a result. Great. Do you want to share what you're saying too, that I hacked it? Well, I mean, I think I did answer it. I guess what I'd say is I feel like there is another trend which is taking the the there's sort of let's call it the Joel Salatin method of farming or the Michael Pollan theory of small, biodiverse farming, where rotation of pasture, rotation of multiple different species, polyculture, those are concepts that are very efficient, but have generally been on a fairly small scale. But I think that there is a real possibility to take those techniques and scale it up. Why shouldn't those techniques be applied to the majority of the world's agricultural land rather than, you know, limited small scale farms. And I think that that's I think of something that I've been asking myself for years, if it's it is actually more profitable, a lot of these small, biodiverse farmers make a lot of profit. If it's more profitable, why isn't everybody doing that? And oftentimes, it's because of lack of access to capital. And to me, that means wow, that's a great opportunity for a capitalist. And so so I think that that's a real trend. There's a fund called Farmland LP that I'm very active with that essentially is formed and is raising money around that proposition exactly. Great. And Danielle, you sit at a high level where you're seeing money flow in both in sustainable businesses and non and kind of what are you seeing there in terms of trends and so a couple of the over the last three years, initially, the money was flowing into ideas, a lot of like restaurant technology. So there's been a lot of money invested in delivery through like across the world, actually. And into some smaller ideas like let me find like help me find the perfect dish for my mood, which is not really solving a huge problem. What's been exciting is that that's changing a lot and people are getting more exposed to what the challenges are with across the food system, and they're starting to tackle them. So just like what I'll take, build off of what Ali was talking about, there are now companies that are creating sensors and different tags to help support grass fed farmers so that they can track their cattle as they're as they're grazing and that they can have a data stream to be able to make projections and be tracking their herd and to be able to do reporting. And so that kind of stuff is awesome. And that wasn't happening three years ago, or maybe it was at the fringes, but those people weren't getting funded. And now these those people are starting to get funded. So I think that that's really exciting. A lot of the trends and food are things that are happening that you're seeing in every other sector, you know, they're coming to food. So, you know, Uber for food, there are a million companies like that. You know, the QuickBooks for farmers or, you know, farm management software, there are a lot of companies like that. But what's really exciting is that they're starting to be capital that's being infused into the space where there wasn't. It used to take entrepreneurs about a year and a half to raise money in the space if they were able to do it. And it was really, really, really hard. You had to basically go out there, like it felt like selling your soul and because no one understood. And that's that's starting to shift. Number one, because of Samira was talking about where there's more interest, people are kind of curious about the space because there have been some large exits. And also because you have some bigger funds that are starting to invest in this space. So I think that that's been really, really exciting. And you're getting a lot of great entrepreneurs. And I think that what's going to be really important, some two things that I'm really excited about are more funds that are launching that are specifically investing in food and that are bring have domain expertise, and that they're bringing on great groups of mentors. And they're not just launching funds or launching funds that are combined with accelerator programs to, to really give entrepreneurs this whole, you know, all the support they that they need to be successful. So I think that's, that's an exciting trend. Great. What do investors need to consider? How is this sector similar, different? I mean, you've both compared a bit to technology. So technology, maybe even to, you know, your renewable sector or things of that sort. What, what things do investors need to consider when they're coming in? It's really not too much different than investing in technology. You want large markets, you want the markets to be disrupted by technology that have lots of protection on IP and the like. And you need great entrepreneurs. It's, it's really the same. I think you really want to echo Ali's point, which is if you can provide a healthier, more sustainable product to an end consumer, where they don't have to sacrifice on taste or on cost, you know, it should be a no-brainer. And there are very few industries where it's that simple and clear and cut. And I think that's what's exciting about the food space. Well, certainly, I would say for me, the entrepreneur is the first and foremost most important criteria. So no matter what I'm investing in, the caliber of the people is my first criterion. And, you know, and I think you stole my thunder by saying the caliber of entrepreneurs in the food space has has really improved a lot. I do think that when I look at investing, it's a little different because investing as a VC, you're looking for essentially a certain type of investments with more leveraged impact. Those are very appealing to me, but I also invest for savings, which is, you know, a different type of, you know, I guess part of my money is the high risk, hopefully high yield investments. But there's another angle, which is where do I put my savings? And that's a different kind of investment and enables me to embrace things like farmland where it may not have a fast return. But it's a great vehicle for savings and has a good yield and accomplishes a really great social impact in the process. So I think there's different points on the spectrum of risk versus reward. And there are hopefully some really amazing points of leverage, such as Hampton Creek, for example, but I think there are also places where maybe it won't be quite as fast, maybe not a huge exit, but a very great place for a different type of investing where it's more focused on safety and, you know, capital preservation. Great. And you kind of hit the nail on the head for my next question, that it seems like there's somewhat, I don't want to say attention, but two different paths of this Joel Salatin local slow money, if you will. And then the technology intersecting as well. Are those, do you see those intersecting? Do you see those parallel paths competing? Kind of what, where do you see them fitting together? Well, I would actually call them both technology in the sense that technology stems from the word technique. And the biodiverse Joel Salatin farming is a different technique, which I believe is superior. And, and so it's still in a sense investing in a different technology where it's different is technology investing in the, you know, in the more pure sense, you can have either patents or other type of protection where you can essentially own the technique. And you're the only person who can, who can provide it and therefore you can get scale faster and larger returns, perhaps. I think you'll see a lot of intersection because by definition, if you're going into the space, you want to make money, but you really want to make impact. And I think that the entrepreneurs are going to be much more collegial and cooperative. And, and it could be that, you know, for the companies that are using plant-based proteins to replace animal-based products, they'll, they'll use the farmlands of the world as their supply chain, because it's a much more sustainable way to do it. You know, Ali gave his favorite water stat, which is a Hampton Creek cookie versus another chocolate chip cookie, tastes exactly the same, but 12 quarts of water less. My favorite, and I promise that I did take a shower this morning when I give you this fact, but you know, is that you can save more water by avoiding a pound of meat than you can by not taking a shower for six months. So every pound of meat is actually 2400 gallons of water. It goes into just that one pound of meat. So the other thing as an investor, forget the mission side of it, is think of the opportunity, how much headroom you have to make it better than what it is today. It's like 2400 ice bucket challenges. You're going to have to share your mic. There we go. Did you want to comment? Oh, yeah. I mean, I, what I would say is that, um, I just totally lost my train of thought. Sorry. We can move on. Sorry to bring up the ice bucket. I know. I was going to say that I think that the most successful companies are whether there's an entrepreneur that is actually has the problem and that it's being co-create. Let's say you are a farmer, but you're working with a technologist to come up with a solution, so that it's not that you're actually coming up, you're building technology for technology's sake, you're leveraging technology to, to streamline a process that you're already doing. And, um, and, you know, the same thing for restaurants too. And there aren't enough companies that are like that, but they're starting to be more of them, I think, and that that's really exciting. And the reason why it's starting to happen is because people are getting exposed to technology for so long. Sustainable food, it felt like, you know, you were completely aversive technology because technology was biotechnology, but that's shifting, right? So like, um, I love talking to Nicolette Han-Nyman who loves, actually loves technology, even though she has a farm and, but she loves the idea of social media enabling you to connect with your customers, being able to get feedback from people, being able to share stories, and then thinking about how you can streamline processes on the farm. And so I think that you're going to start to see more of that I certainly have through the work that we're doing, the feedback I've gotten from people. Great. So we've seen technology move into different aspects of the supply chain. Where do we still need to see improvements? And where, where is the opportunity still exist? I guess in the same breath, where do we, where do we see oversaturation? I think it's way too early to say it's oversaturation in any part of the food technology area. You know, maybe these delivery services in these peripheral areas, which I don't, you know, have used a separate, important, but separate sector. We still haven't replaced, you know, we're still using, you know, thousands of gallons of water to make a steak on your plate. There's a lot of headroom. So this is just greenfield. There's lots of opportunity. I think it's just too early to say. I would agree completely. Even in the, I would say the food delivery. Let's put it this way. I think that the first wave people, a lot of people went for what seemed to be the easiest work of, you know, eliminating the middleman by creating software that will automate something, you know, a delivery service to connect the farm to the consumer or so on. So I think that there are fewer companies that have taken on the much bigger, tougher challenges, such as Hampton Creek, for example, where they're rethinking the entire concept of food from the ground up. So, but having said that, I would agree that even the delivery part, I wouldn't say it's saturated. I think there's, there's summer. There's going to be some companies that win and some that lose of the current batch, but there's also room for someone to show up next week who doesn't even exist today that, you know, that may take a leadership position. So, and certainly there's a lot of parts of the country that don't even have services like Farmigo or Good Eggs or others. And so there's, you know, a land grab as well to be, to be fought across the rest of this country and the rest of the world. There's a lot, there's a lot of opportunity with distribution. Distribution is still, it's really, it's really tough. I don't think that anyone's really nailed that a lot of people are operating on losses right now, so it might seem like they have it, but they don't. And another area, I mean, we're gonna, we have resource constraints. So, you know, how to farm more efficiently, even if you're a small farm. A lot of small farms aren't as efficient and with resources as, as larger farms are. So, figuring out how to, water is gonna be a huge issue. Figuring out how to grow more food in different places is gonna be huge as we have, you know, growing population. And on that note, and I know, Samir, you've made some ag tech or on farm investments. Do you see that trickling down? I visited a farm in Colorado that was 3,000 acres and run by three people because it was all technology. Do you see that trickling down to the smaller farmer? Is that an opportunity? I think it will. I think, you know, we have a company that's using robotics to do lettuce thinning, for example. Like, I, another fact you learn when you start getting to this, for every head of lettuce that ultimately cultivated, you plant 10. And then right now, you manually have people go pick the best looking head of lettuce and zap every other one. So, it has rooms to grow. And that's something that can easily be replaced with robotics. It brings up another issue. I'm not sure you want to go there is what do you do with all the farm workers? What are you going to do with all the all the workers that will be displaced? And I'm not sure people have thought that through appropriately. And that was a conversation that we had that day of, wow, we're all the jobs. I want to go back to the cookie that Hampton Creek works. I think there's also tension, or if you will, between providing wages to farmers that are, you know, making sure that the farmers are getting the margins that they need to be sustainable, but also feeding a growing population of people who are on food stamps. Where do you guys find, is that, again, something you can do at the same time? Is that where Hampton Creek can come in? I know they just went into, is it Target that they, or Walmart? Yes. Okay. Target, Walmart, Moscow, Dollar Tree. Oh, that was, that's what I just saw. So, how does that, how did those play in and can they play together? I think it's actually plays much better. So, by using the Hampton Creek cookie, your charge, or the mayo, right, it tastes exactly the same, you know, if not better, and it costs the same, and you get all the benefits of no cholesterol, you know, it's vegan, it's got all the good stuff, and it's done in a humane way. You're not doing animal farming to get to the mayo or using eggs in the mayo. And I think actually for the people on food stamps, if it's the same cost, you're also providing a much healthier alternative. And I don't mean just the no cholesterol, that's important. But, you know, 95% of chickens get infected with E. Coli. You know, so many viruses and sicknesses are, are linked to the way we do food farming right now. All the influenza, I mean even the Spanish influenza of 1918 was caused by avian flu virus. So you're going to provide people much healthier all across the spectrum, same cost, equal product, that they can be proud to serve their, their kids and their families. And people would, you know, I think will benefit greatly from that. I would actually say lower cost. Yeah. I mean, there's so much savings. And it's not by squeezing a farmer. You know, it's not if you don't involve an animal in the production of a cookie. That means it's just way less acreage, way fewer of all inputs or resources are involved. And that means you can have a profitable company and a cheaper product for the consumer without the farmer being squeezed at all. And that's just the direct cost, the indirect health effects of the way we do things now are, are, it's hard to quantify those. Okay, great. I want to get into a bit of an international focus. China was second behind US and funding startups in food and agriculture. And I was wondering if you're seeing the impacts of Chinese investment and also how the Chinese market is potentially influencing the investments that you've made. Both very positive. So I think, you know, in all of the, you know, in renewable energy and sustainability, the Chinese have been very patient, steadfast and, and supportive, much so, more so than the United States, you know, much, which I think is going to be a problem in the long run. And they also are understand the health effects. The avian flu really hurts that population. There's a lot of lactose intolerance in that population. So they've been very aggressively, they've been, we've, we've got Asian investors in, in, in both impossible foods and in Hampton Creek. And then those markets are huge and they're welcoming us in with open arms. And so it's a very exciting market. Danielle, do you want to come on and what you're saying, both China and internationally? Well, in China, I mean, there's a lot of food, there are a lot of food safety concerns and people don't trust the food. So it's a huge market. People are willing to pay so much money for their food or for solutions to be able to trust their food. So I think that there's a lot of innovation that's happening and there's a lot, you're seeing a lot of investment come in. And then internationally, I mean, in every single country, there are entrepreneurs that are popping up. And a lot of the technologies look similar to what, what's happening here. I was in Italy last year at this very small conference and learned that there were 150 food tech companies there that I'd never heard of. They were just, they're not listed anywhere. They're totally off the map and they're doing all different kinds of e-commerce startups. They have start up ag tech startups. So and you're also seeing a lot of technology that's coming out of Africa and India, which is really interesting for farmers and it's not, doesn't have all the bells and whistles necessarily of technology that's coming out of here. It's not necessarily precision agriculture, but it's more interesting because it's actually solving a lot of their problems. So things like very simple SMS based technologies that will send a farmer there the market prices so they can, when they're talking to the distributor, to the middle men, they can say, actually, this is how much it costs, right? So that's saving people like 30% sending, creating network, farmer networks that are all done by SMS so that people can connect with each other to help identify what certain pests are or to warn people about something that's coming. That's been, that's been huge. Great. So shifting a little bit to the entrepreneur aspect, what do entrepreneurs need to know in the space to be getting investment from you guys? So I, my philosophy might be a little contrarian. I generally, I guess I would say, I largely agree with Danielle that the best companies are the ones where the entrepreneur was solving a problem for themselves where they actually needed a solution and they tried to find one and couldn't find one. So like, damn, I guess I need to fiddle it myself. And because that's an entrepreneur who is driven from, kind of from their heart, they know the market needs it because they're the customer themselves and they're not, they're basically going to have their own compass guiding them. And what I suggest generally to entrepreneurs is follow your own heart, follow your own compass and be patient with finding the investor who shares your vision. I think it's dangerous when an entrepreneur tries to change their vision around in hopes of pleasing this investor or that one because you're, you're never going to find an investor who agrees with everything you do. Or if you, if you change what you do to please one investor, you're going to lose your own internal compass basically. So my advice would be to find the thing that you're passionate about and that solves a real need that you see and then make it more of a search process, process to find the investor who's already out there who shares that vision. I think it's, again, doesn't differ too much from tech. The main thing that entrepreneurs need to find though is that when you get these new areas of venture investment, you have a lot of venture investors that follow the herd. So you're going to see a lot more investment now in the area, but that they're going to be, if things start to get a little rough or less exciting, they'll run for the hills. And so that would be the advice I'd give to entrepreneurs, making sure that the investors that they get are going to be patient and deal with some of the issues they haven't seen before. Thank you. I would also say that having a, having a really great proof of concept and showing traction, very important, same as with a tech startup, and showing that you're really solving a problem, I think is the biggest thing. And, and, and then when you are looking for investors, finding someone who understands the space is really important because building on what Samira was saying that they, there are a lot of investors that think that this is a hot space right now, and so they're putting money into it, but they may not understand the intricacies of how complex it is. And it's a much longer, in many cases, it can be a much longer investment horizon until, you know, you realize your success. And so being able to have those investors who are going to be with you is, and who are, understand that and who can also leverage their network to help you, to help you reach your customers or to develop strategic partnerships is really important. Great. And going back to looking at, you know, across the supply chain and obviously having partners that come in. And we've been talking a bit about Hampton Creek, so I'm going to pick on them again. You know, how much do they, as a company, need to be working across the supply chain and how much do they need to be building infrastructure along the supply chain and is that something that entrepreneurs need to be looking at in the space? So I think for Hampton Creek, it's an ongoing process. You know, they're at the very, very beginning of an enormous, enormous opportunity. And so right now might be a little bit early for building out their own infrastructure, but as they take more and more market share, whether it's in mayonnaise or in cookies or in various other products to come, then I think there'll be economies of scale in owning more of the supply chain themselves. But frankly, even if they didn't do that, there's so much efficiency to be gained, you know, because the raw materials are more affordable to begin with and more efficient than eggs or than dairy or so on that they don't have to do that to succeed. But it's, you know, I think at some point the economies of scale would merit doing so. Yeah, and I know good eggs had to do a bit of a pivot towards more infrastructure. I don't know if you guys have any other companies that you've seen that have had to take into account the fact that the supply chain isn't there fully to support their growth. We haven't seen that. But what we've seen is that companies that are supplying ingredients to the existing food supply chain, no matter how exciting the ingredient is, it just takes a long time. So the food companies, even if you give them something that's healthier or happier or what not, it just takes them a long time to incorporate it. So that's why you're seeing a lot of them become more consumer facing to go direct to the consumer. Great. And so given the different sectors we talk about, precision farming, delivery, replacement foods, who do you guys see as the exits? I know there's been a lot of concern about consolidation within the food arena of, you know, a handful of companies own all of the food businesses now. Do you see that as a benefit, as a negative to this? And who do you see as the big players for exits? Well, big exit was climate, right? Yeah, so we were investors in climate and they bought climate Corp and that was great. I think in the food space, it's early to tell. And there'll be one, just like in every industry, there's going to be one or two companies that say, you know, we want to stay younger and hit her and on the bleeding edge of technology and they'll move into it. And there'll be ones that kind of laugh it off. And I think you will see a dynamic of Chrysler and GM versus the Tesla where five years after five years too late, boardrooms will say, hey, what are we doing in that area? And couldn't we have bought that company for, you know, one-tenth that's market cap now? I mean, so I'll speak about my own personal investing. It really varies from investment. I generally, if it's a solid team and a solid thesis, personally, I mean, an exit is not even really an important criterion for me. So the farmland fund that I mentioned earlier does provide some element of exit, but it's, you know, the intent there is to buy land, convert it to organic, make it more profitable and hold it basically in perpetuity. And so the exit is more a question of how can an investor who might want to change their allocation of assets sell shares and some other investor buy shares, but for the land itself to remain managed in the same way. So in that case, the straightforward path is for it to ultimately become a public rete and to become publicly traded. And the idea would be that an investor could sell shares in the land and someone else could buy shares in it, but the company itself would remain as an ever-growing landowner that continues what it's doing. At the other end of the spectrum are the, you know, much more sort of tech-oriented type companies, and I'd probably say Hampton Creek is at that end of the spectrum. But even there, I'd say this is a company that can be very successful as a standalone public or private company. It's more about building a long-term business. And if they even accomplish one-tenth of what they're setting out to do, they'll still be an enormously successful company that does not need an exit in order to be a worthwhile investment. My hope is that there are more companies that go public, and that being acquired is not seen as the end goal, which it is, and I mean, it is for a lot of food companies, because it's very hard to scale. But I think that what we're seeing is that there are a lot of investors that are coming in that are kind of surprises, right? So like OpenTable was acquired by PriceLine, right? MicroSwitch does POS systems. They were acquired by Oracle. You have IBM is very interested in food, so is Microsoft, so is GE. You have all these new companies that are coming into this space, and because this is a $6.4 trillion industry globally, which means there's a lot of opportunity. There are 2.2 billion smallholder farmers. It's the opportunity is so huge, so that's very sexy, and everyone's trying to figure out where do I fit in there. So I think that's kind of exciting. You're also gonna see a lot of big companies, right? I get to go and talk to a lot of big companies about what the future is gonna look like and where they fit in, and I always say you don't wanna be blockbuster. So they're scared shitless, and so they're seeing Unilever made a strategic investment in a recipe company called Yumly. They're trying to figure out is that what we should be doing? They're not really sure, so I think you're gonna start to see a little bit more of that too, either as strategic investments, acquisitions for some entrepreneurs that wanna move on to the next thing. And then I think that the major area where we're gonna start to see a lot of acquisitions pretty soon is in online grocery, because you have, everyone's kind of growing. I mean, Amazon Fresh is growing, Peapod, Fresh Direct, and what's kind of cool is that in every region in this country, there is a good eggs. You might not hear about them or read about them, but they all exist, and they all have this local infrastructure of local firms that they've built out and these communities, and so I know that they just all launched an association, and I would imagine that they will either start joining forces or that someone who's smart will start going out and acquiring them, because it's so hard to build out that infrastructure. And that's a really good point because a lot of this is sourcing, and a lot of sourcing is about relationships, particularly on the good egg side. It's about telling the story. It's about having those relationships. How difficult is it for those, how important are those? And are they, I'm guessing they're incredibly attractive to an Amazon who has much more trouble getting in those local relationships? And so I think it'll be very interesting to see what goes on. It will be interesting. I mean, it's kind of fun if you go and look at Amazon Fresh's website and good eggs website and how they're positioning their offering. I mean, even though Amazon sells lots of goods, that maybe they're not selling the same stuff that's on Etsy, and they're not gonna try and do that. But the reality is that those are physical, non-perishable items, so it doesn't really matter, you can compete on price, but food is so different because you do have to deal with perishable goods. And so the more fresh your products are, which means when you're getting them from these farms or when you're getting them locally, it cuts down on the distribution costs, and then it also ensures that people wanna buy from you because you're getting better quality products. So that's, it's very, it's different, but it'll be interesting. Great, well, we've kind of, and the purpose was to cover a ton of stuff up here, and I know we've gone all over the map, and I'm gonna turn it over to the audience and see if there's questions. Please throw up your hand and there's a mic that'll come around. Hi, my name is Beth Collins. I'm here representing Catholic Relief Services. I'm just interested if you're doing, if the investors are doing investing in anything, any opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa, and if not, why not, or what you're looking for in those sort of communities. You know, for us, it's really hard to manage companies outside of Northern California, so just, so it's, you know, I'm sure there's great opportunities there. We're just not set up to do that. I think I'd say the same thing for me. It's not for lack of opportunities, but I'd say I have also not very much knowledge about it either, and I have always found that I'm most successful and I invest in the things that I know about and that I'm passionate about. So, you know, so when I go outside of that, I've often found myself regretting it, so. I think we've seen, I mean, I'm not definitely incredibly knowledgeable of what's going on in Sub-Saharan Africa, but I think there's incredible opportunities of what we've seen is in information sharing and communication, similar to what we were talking about here, of what's the weather patterns. Other things that I've seen is, what are the prices of the markets? So, if you are in a very rural community and it takes you all day to get to market, how do you know that's a good day to go sell? The other things that we've seen is infrastructure needs. How do you scale up and create infrastructure? You know, milk is a great, and dairy is a great example of, you know, you have a lot of dairy farmers that need to get two hours away to drop their milk off, and in that two hours the milk gets spoiled because you're in a very hot country. So there's a lot of opportunity there. I think, unfortunately, it's outside the purvey of this, but some exciting things going on as well. Yeah, so we are on the money stage here. So let's get back to the money. So we have heard quite a little bit about where you see the investment money going, and I'm equally excited that now some of the brightest minds that used to go to Wall Street and Tech are going into food-related businesses, and some of the investors who tended to invest in tech also going into food. But my question is, what are some trends where who is doing the investment, where the money is coming from? Because we only talked about the traditional investors, VCs and angels, but I'm seeing this onslaught of community. It's now the biggest food, it's now the biggest category on Kickstarter, for example. What do you see in the interplay between traditional investors and community taking ownership of their own food systems? So I think there's a lot of potential there. I think both Kickstarter and Indiegogo are really terrific platforms for whether it's for fully funding a project or for the initial momentum needed to then attract other types of investors. Your own company, Credibles, I think, is equally relevant, and particularly in food. For those who don't know, Credibles allows food merchants to essentially sell the equivalent of digital gift certificates so that somebody can pre-buy $100 or $1,000 worth of food from an artisanal supplier or from a farm or from wherever. And it's a form of funding, but also the consumer is getting that product in the form of a credit. But I think that another vehicle that's also equally relevant is the concept of a direct public offering, which is different from an IPO, which IPOs are federally regulated and very, very expensive and have a lot of baggage. A direct public offering, if you're within a geographically limited area, which a farm or a local company is, is a way to raise money from your local community with much, much less baggage and overhead. And I think there's not enough farmers who are even aware of it because it's a great vehicle for the organic and sustainable farmers who are profitable but need to grow and need capital to grow. It's a great vehicle for them to raise that capital from their existing loyal customer base. I'll just add that another interesting aspect has been Kiva. I was actually with somebody the other day who didn't know that if you lend on Kiva, you're actually lending to the Microfinance Institute, not the individual, and she was so appalled and I was like, where have you been? But Kiva with Kiva Zip has been basically enabling that, and Kiva Zip has a ton of farmers on there, which is really exciting because they need small infusions of capital and it doesn't make any sense for a bank or anybody else to be able to lend $5,000. And so it's a really a way of enabling that and obviously at a decent rate. I hope I got it right, Arno, in my little two-minute summary. So this guy has a question? Oh, sorry. Have you all seen or are you looking for investment opportunities in tree crops, perennial vegetables, no-till or permaculture? I didn't hear all that. Tree crops, horticulture. Tree crops, perennial vegetables, no-till or permaculture. I feel like those are several separate categories, so I've looked at some of those. I mean, tree crops, I'd say, I wouldn't pick any of those and say that this is individually a category of its own that I'm passionate about, but I think each of them has its own strengths. Generally, I think that perennial crops, in general, are more sustainable and so whether it's trees or no-till perennial cropping or no-till cropping of annual crops, soil biology is I think one of the most precious assets, whether it's in terms of the impact on the atmosphere or just the value of the land. And so I think anything that is supportive and or accretive to improving the soil I think makes for an interesting investment. The farmland company I mentioned earlier, their primary ultimate long-term investment is in the soil basically, is to build up soil health and soil carbon and soil biology. So I guess I'd say I'm interested, but I'm not as well versed in the individual categories you mentioned. Thanks. First off, I want to say thank you for investing in food companies. In fact, I think this room should be packed right now because if we're talking about, I mean, your money's worthless without food. As someone who's, I've raised money on Kickstarter, raised money from Kiva Zip and is focused on more of the people space. One thing we haven't talked about much is people. Right now in the U.S., and this number's getting bigger, one farmer's growing food for 150 people here and abroad. What are your thoughts on sort of how do we cultivate the next generation of growers? So I, first of all, I'm not sure if that number counts. I might be wrong, but I don't know whether that counts the farm workers or just the farm owner including those undocumented workers, of course. Go ahead. That number, according to the census, that number is an actual sort of farmer. So anyone that has the actual skills to that owns a farm and runs the farm. Right, so I think not counting the fact that there are lots of undocumented immigrants working on farms, I think that we've, over the past 50 years, American agriculture has moved to an extreme that is highly mechanized and essentially based on a definition of efficiency that may no longer be valid. Essentially it's based on the assumption that land is incredibly scarce and labor is incredibly scarce, but that oil is flowing like water and that water flows like water, I guess. So we end up with the farming methods that are very fuel-intensive and trying to get the most yield out of the land. When in reality I think we would probably have more profitable farms if they took into account the cost of all those different resources. Fuel is actually very, very expensive and as a limited resource and using fuel to generate nitrogen for the land is not necessarily as efficient as the nitrogen cycle that regenerates it by itself. But with respect to people I think, I guess what I'd say is I think that some of the farming methods that are more efficient overall also employ more people, but in the long run actually are more profitable because people are not necessarily as, they're not as expensive as perhaps people assume. I guess I may be referring to like the average age of a farmer in the US is 55 and they're not getting any younger and that age is going up. Who's gonna grow the food in the future? So I would say there's never been more interest in people going back to the farm. The barriers to entry are really high for starting a farm. And so we need to make it more profitable. We also need to make it easier to pass on knowledge and that's where technology actually is awesome because it's capturing knowledge that you wouldn't otherwise be able to capture. And I mean we just need to invest more in education and coming up with new business models for farming. And the other thing is that building, developing a farm, it's not just a farmer. There are all kinds of people that are there. You need someone that's doing the finance, you need someone that's doing the marketing. You need to be thinking about value added products and how you get those to market and all of that stuff. And so just exposing people to all the different options and then creating an infrastructure and making it financially viable which I think is the most important thing to get more people interested. That's where you're gonna start to build out a really robust economy and attract more people. And I'll just add that National Farmers Coalition and the Garry and Trust are also working on these issues. And I think the other biggest barrier to entry is getting farmland. Cause we're not talking about you being a hipster and farming in your backyard. We're talking about getting people on farmland and that goes to the transfer of farmland, you know, providing somebody with an exit for retirement and also getting people on the farm. And I know Farmland LP is doing some interesting stuff around this, I don't know if you wanna mention it and then close real quick. Sure, sure. So yeah, actually, when you mentioned the idea of the average age of the farmer being, you know, relatively old, I think that to me that more represents the farm owner or the land owner rather than the person necessarily working on it. And in my mind, I think the future might entail somewhat of a separation. It doesn't, the farmer who's actually tilling the land or hopefully not even tilling it but working the land does not necessarily have to also be the owner of the land. Any more than, you know, this conference does not own this warehouse or, you know, most companies don't own their office buildings anymore. It turns out it's actually quite efficient to have the ownership of the real estate be, you know, a different corporate entity that focuses on, you know, managing real estate and to have the people working in it be a different entity. So Farmland LP's model is the real estate owner. They own the land but they provide extremely friendly leases to farmers, including, you know, including young farmers where rather than focusing on upfront cash rent, they presented as a long-term profit share or revenue share and enabling the farmer to get access to land much more affordably. And, you know, the land owner shares the risk but also shares the upside. I think this is a great way to bring new farmers onto the land and it's also a great way to transition from the aging landowners where the, you know, the 65-year-old farmer who wants to retire may find that their own kids don't want to farm but somebody else's kids do and don't have the capital to do so and this kind of greases the wheels for that handover to happen, you know, without and in theory the farmer, the aging farmer will get paid for their land or get shares in the reed and pass that on to their kids rather than passing on the land itself. Great, so I want to thank everybody here. It's been a huge pleasure and I know we've kind of bounced all around and I appreciate you following me with that and just wanted to thank you. It's wonderful and thank everybody else for coming. Have a great night.