I spent most of last week at the APAC Agrifood Innovation Summit. It was excellent to engage with the people and issues defining the future of Ag and Food in Asia. A few things stood out for me from the Summit:
Firstly, the continued rise of Biologicals as a component of growing food, as well as the complexities in categorising and gaining regulatory approvals for these products across Asia on a country by country basis. Add to that the long channels and cost in reaching smallholder farmers who make up by far the majority of production. Despite all of this, biologicals were a "hot" topic.
Secondly, the kiwis who made the trek represented Aotearoa New Zealand extremely well. Mark Piper gave a showcase of the excellent deep tech at the Bio Economy Science institute, including Scentian Bio and finished with a rousing waiata (tutira mai nga iwi) with Danny Loughlin, Sandie Rota, and others. Katy Bluett came to Singapore with a great representation of kiwi foodtech/biotech startups- Olivia Ogilvie from Opo Bio, Mark Balchin from Mara Bio, Amos Palfreyman from Miruku, and Alex D. from ANDFOODS. Sprout portfolio founder Nikolai Macnee from Metrovate and Sprout Director, and Metrovate Chair (to name a few of her many hats) Bridgit Hawkins. To a person, every one of these people demonstrated that NZ tech leaders and founders and their startups are every bit as good (if not better) than their (often better funded) international peers.
Finally, one of the topics de jour was, given the large quantity of funds that had gone in, and relatively small number/value of exits, whether VC was the right funding model for Agtech and Foodtech innovation. Adam Anders from Anterra Capital (who have had three exits so far in 2025) moderated a panel at the top end of investment, which included Marcus REMMERS from Novo Holdings, Phil Morle from Main Sequence Ventures, Cyril Ebersweiler from SOSV, Wayne Soh from Plug and Play, Olaf Koch from Zintinus. The sentiment from the panel was that fund raising for Agrifoodtech VC firms had passed the bottom of the cycle and that there were still good opportunities for VC to get good returns if focussed in the right areas.
I was on a panel in the last session representing Sprout Agritech with great early stage Agtech & Foodtech investors in the APAC region Matilda Ho, Mark Gustowski, Claire Pribula, William Taing éèŽąć ad Wasutee Poowuthichai. The general consensus for early stage investment, due to the long timeframes and learning cycles, was that "it takes a village to grow a child". That is, a combination of first customer engagement (ideally through corporate partner relationships) combined with government non-dilutive support and investment strategies that included different types of exit off-ramps. For many niche plays, to provide liquidity, they should look to roll-up and consolidation plays to provide a full-stack solution that could be competitive.
All-in-all an excellent few days in Singapore at the summit.
9 November 2025 Ă 21h13
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