Two of the largest seed and agricultural chemical companies in the world, DuPont and Bayer, are among five partners in a $15 million accelerator fund to back early-stage agricultural technology companies, says Reuters. The new fund, called Radicle, joins a crowd of investors “hoping to profit from ever more sophisticated tools in the food supply chain, from plant genomics and seed traits, to drones and weather sensors for crops,” it said.
Investors can see diverse payoffs, ranging from income for venture capital firms to access for seed and chemical companies to new products, and cash flow for start-up companies so they can pursue research, said Reuters. While blockbuster discoveries are rare, the ag-tech field is attractive. The head of AgFunder, an investment platform, told Reuters that investment in ag technology startups this year is on par with the record $4.6 billion of 2015.
For a lot of investors, ag tech is viewed as “a better way to institutionalize an investment in food and agriculture,” said Rob Leclerc, the AgFunder chief.