Farm Credit Canada is the lead investor in the Global Pioneer Fund

Farm Credit Canada (FCC) has been announced as the lead investor of SVG Ventures| THRIVE’s third fund, the SVG Ventures Pioneer Fund (Pioneer Fund).

FCC is a federal Crown corporation with a loan portfolio of more than C$44 billion. As Canada’s leading agriculture lender, FCC provides entrepreneurs with the capital they need to grow their businesses through flexible, competitively priced financing and strategic venture capital investments.

The Pioneer Fund, which is planning CAD$75 million in capital commitments, will be deployed to support global agrifood start-ups developing innovative and sustainable technologies.

Agriculture is uniquely positioned to tackle global sustainability challenges, and the Pioneer  Fund will support founders and innovators along the entire agrifood value chain while seeking to earn competitive returns for investors.

SVG Ventures will continue its model of advancing and elevating start-ups in partnership with Alberta Innovates through its THRIVE Accelerator Programs and recently launched THRIVE Academy, a pre-accelerator program funded by Alberta Innovates. Graduates from these SVG Ventures|THRIVE administered programs provide both robust investment opportunities to the Pioneer Fund as well as unique insights into participants’ founders, technologies, and business models.

“We are delighted to have FCC join us as lead investor in our Pioneer Fund,” said John Hartnett, Founder, and CEO of SVG Ventures|THRIVE. “FCC has been a long-time partner and key supporter of early-stage agrifood tech companies, and we are delighted to expand our partnership with this investment.”

“FCC is pleased to be the lead investor in the SVG Ventures Pioneer Fund, which is a natural extension of our involvement in bringing SVG Thrive’s successful global accelerator and platform to Canada in 2020,” said Rebbecca Clarke, vice-president of FCC venture capital. “The Pioneer Fund is an exciting and important next step in bringing needed capital to this growing acceleration ecosystem for start-up and early-stage entrepreneurs and companies in Canada’s agriculture and food industry.”

“Alberta Innovates congratulates SVG Ventures|THRIVE and Farm Credit Canada coming together through the SVG Ventures Pioneer Fund,” said Laura Kilcrease, CEO of Alberta Innovates. Creating wraparound services for agrifood innovation is critical to building a healthy and supportive start-up ecosystem. When those companies succeed, Alberta succeeds.”

SVG Ventures is also delighted to welcome the Argosy Foundation to the Pioneer Fund. The Argosy Foundation is a private family foundation founded in 1997 by John Abele, co-founder of Boston Scientific, and is based out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The mission of the Argosy Foundation is to support people and programs that make our society a better place to live.

The Pioneer Fund is the third fund by SVG Ventures|THRIVE. The Pioneer Fund will make initial investments in Seed to Series A global agrifood start-ups. To date, SVG has invested in over 80 global agrifood tech companies. Their portfolio includes transformational agrifoodtech companies such as Tortuga Agtech, Farmwise, Milkmoovement, Boomitra, Trace Genomics, and Burro, to name a few.

For more information:
SVG Ventures|Thrive
THRIVE@svgventures.com 
thriveagrifood.com