It’s a growing fund, says Ying, and finding an “anchor point” among potential investments involved considerable trial and error. Sifting through hundreds of “innovative but crazy” ideas helped refine their search criteria for upstream and midstream solutions along the food supply chain.
Looking ahead, the pair says they are eyeing investments in Asia, starting with Hong Kong. CGV’s sole investment in Hong Kong is plant-based meat startup Good Food Technologies, which raised $1.5 million in a seed round led by Gobi Partners last March. Supply chain woes also played a role in declining funding for agtech and foodtech startups over the past year, amid an ongoing drought in VC activity. In 2022, global funding in agtech and foodtech startups plummeted by 44% from the year prior to $29.6 billion, per a Marchfrom agtech VC AgFunder and Singaporean state-owned investment firm Temasek. In 2021, high tech valuations contributed to a record-breaking $51.7 billion in agtech and foodtech funding that year.