Venture capitalist Joe Hudson and agricultural asset manager Phil Christensen are taking several investors on a Central Valley tour to introduce them to what makes California agriculture a USD30bn industry and educate them about agricultural related companies as potential investments.
Christensen says: "California is the world’s fifth largest supplier of food and agricultural commodities. The various players in California agriculture are some of the most sophisticated in the world and compete on a global scale. Many investors however, are not familiar with the industry and the way it works, because it is different from other sectors such as technology and consumer packaged goods.”
In addition to building bridges between investors and agriculture, Hudson and Christensen hope for three significant outcomes from the tour: identify new investment opportunities with above average returns, familiarise growers with new technology innovations, to help them improve their competitiveness, and help to create new, high-paying jobs in rural areas.
Some of the investor attendees include partners from Mohr Davidow Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures, US Venture Partners and J.R. Simplot.
Lance Donny, the chief financial officer of PureSense, a company funded by One Earth Capital, says: "Tapping into the venture capital and institutional investor networks helps to enrich the agricultural industry not only by providing greater access to capital but also by providing more direct access to technological innovation and its applications to agriculture."
Hudson co-founded One Earth Capital, a venture capital firm which invests in sustainable technology in the agriculture, water and energy sectors.
Christensen is based at Agriglobe, an agricultural asset management company in California.
