{"id":2028,"date":"2016-12-05T23:36:50","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T23:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/tyson-foods-launches-new-venture-fund-to-back-food-and-agriculture-startups.html"},"modified":"2016-12-05T23:36:50","modified_gmt":"2016-12-05T23:36:50","slug":"tyson-foods-launches-new-venture-fund-to-back-food-and-agriculture-startups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/tyson-foods-launches-new-venture-fund-to-back-food-and-agriculture-startups.html","title":{"rendered":"Tyson Foods launches new venture fund to back food and agriculture startups"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Tyson Foods Inc.<\/a>, one of the world\u2019s largest makers and marketers of meat products, has announced the formation of a $150 million venture capital fund to back food and agriculture startups.<\/p>\n

According to Tyson\u2019s\u00a0Executive Vice President of Strategy and New Ventures, Monica McGurk, the fund will seek to invest in startups\u00a0solving problems around food production, distribution, nutrition, food waste\u00a0and\u00a0safety.<\/p>\n

The new venture arm will invest opportunistically in startups it is impressed by along these lines, and will not limit\u00a0its deals to early-stage or mature companies only, nor to a\u00a0particular product or technology-type.<\/p>\n

That means\u00a0Tyson could be\u00a0investing in everything from\u00a0new types of\u00a0packaging that can give\u00a0a chicken a longer shelf-life, to sensors, software or robotics that can reduce food waste in factories or at restaurants, or innovation that\u2019s more around a great new food\u00a0brand.<\/p>\n

Perhaps surprisingly, Tyson is even interested in backing\u00a0companies developing\u00a0\u201calternative proteins,\u201d as industry insiders call them,\u00a0which are often vegetarian or vegan-friendly meat replacements.<\/p>\n

Tyson already took a stake\u00a0in\u00a0Beyond Meat<\/a>, which makes\u00a0plant-based patties that aspire to have the same taste, juiciness and grill-ability\u00a0of real beef burgers.<\/p>\n

That deal and others like it\u00a0have been\u00a0seen as a sign of sea changes in the meat industry in response to global environmental and health concerns.<\/p>\n

Oxford researchers<\/a>\u00a0published a study earlier this year that forecast,\u00a0\u201cA\u00a0global switch to diets that rely less on meat and more on fruit and vegetables could save up to 8 million lives by 2050, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two thirds, and lead to healthcare-related savings and avoided climate damages of $1.5 trillion.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Tyson is based in Springdale, Arkansas its new fund, Tyson New Ventures LLC, will be headquartered in Chicago, a hotbed of activity for food tech startups since the rise of\u00a0Grubhub and home to other food-and-ag venture firms\u00a0including S2G Ventures<\/a> and Cultivian Sandbox Ventures<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mary-Kay James<\/a> will lead the investment team at the new fund. Prior to joining Tyson,\u00a0James was the\u00a0Managing Director of Agriculture, Nutrition Health investments for DuPont\u00a0Ventures, and Chairwoman of the NVCA Corporate\u00a0Venture\u00a0Group.<\/p>\n

McGurk said that one reason Tyson decided to break off a serious chunk of capital to back startups\u00a0was that consumer goods are\u00a0an\u00a0area lacking attention from corporate\u00a0VCs.<\/p>\n

Plenty of money from private equity and venture capital funds has flowed to food, she noted.<\/p>\n

And other food giants including Campbell Soup\u2019s Acre Venture Partners or Kellog\u2019s Eighteen94 Capital have started venture investing, but are doing in partnership with\u00a0outisde venture capitalists,\u00a0rather than building their\u00a0funds completely in-house.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the ability to finance entrepreneurs and give them oxygen, but we have capabilities to help\u00a0accelerate their growth and improve the odds of success for them,\u201d McGurk said.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the new fund\u00a0plans to\u00a0help its portfolio companies, or other startups\u00a0it is evaluating for investment, to connect with experts in various departments of Tyson Foods for everything from\u00a0research\u00a0and product testing to business development.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0startup working on\u00a0technology to\u00a0help\u00a0restaurants reduce food waste may find it easy to meet one or two restaurateurs and test out new\u00a0technology on a limited basis.\u00a0But McGurk said, \u201cIt can be hard to make a\u00a0technical solution work in a real operating environment at scale, especially if you have never been in the food service industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tyson has connections to thousands of restaurants, food retailers and farms that raise chickens and other livestock for it.<\/p>\n

And the company runs a massive \u201cchill chain,\u201d and food distribution system,\u00a0not to mention culinary test kitchens,\u00a0and teams that build huge data banks of\u00a0consumer insights on\u00a0food preferences and what\u2019s driving growth in food.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Article source: https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2016\/12\/05\/tyson-foods-launches-new-venture-fund-to-back-food-and-agriculture-startups\/?ncid=rss<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tyson Foods Inc., one of the world\u2019s largest makers and marketers of meat products, has announced the formation of a $150 million venture capital fund to back food and agriculture <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-2028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-networking-and-communication","tag-network-and-communication"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t