-KH News Desk (cbedit@imaws.org)
Earth First Food Ventures (EFFV), a specialised food tech venture capital platform with locations in Switzerland, the US, India, Brazil, and Greece, has announced the launch of the Smart Protein Fund in partnership with Milltrust Ventures, the venture investment arm of Milltrust International, an award-winning investment firm with co-headquarters in London and Singapore. With the help of EFFV’s extensive industry knowledge and Milltrust’s great experience in sustainable investment, this fund will make investments in alternative proteins.
The Smart Protein Fund will seek to disrupt the world’s largest industry – food – by channelling climate capital towards scaling Smart Protein companies for a cleaner, healthier end-product, produced locally for local consumption. Portfolio companies will have a significantly lower carbon footprint and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, whilst at the same time providing attractive returns in a fast-growing industry driven by innovative technologies. The Smart Protein Fund will invest in the leading alternative protein companies of tomorrow focused on plant-based proteins, cultivated meat, and fermentation technologies, as well as the infrastructure that will help scale this growing industry.
Simon Hopkins, CEO of Milltrust International Group says: “Few sectors offer the growth opportunity of a total disruption of the human food chain, as we seek to address the rapidly growing demand for a protein based diet across the globe, coupled with the need to scale in a way that doesn’t deplete the Earth’s finite resources.”
“We are delighted to build on our successful investment in Roslin Technologies, which will set the course for the types of investments we have identified for our new Smart Protein Fund in partnership with Earth Food First Ventures. Timing is everything and investments in this growing industry are being repriced as commercial viability becomes a reality. Its continued acceleration, moving from R&D to growth at scale, will allow us to produce healthier, lower impact proteins in line with accelerating demand.”
The 2016 seed investment by Milltrust in Roslin Technologies, an Edinburgh-based food and ag tech company focused on disruptive biotechnologies with core competencies in developing and commercialising research in the nascent global cultivated meat industry, served as the foundation for this fund. Roslin Technologies was the first alternative protein investment made by Milltrust. The Smart Protein Fund will benefit from Milltrust’s extensive expertise in this field as well as climate technology and sustainability in general.
Brian Ruszczyk, CEO of Earth First Food Ventures: “We are thrilled to be partnering with Milltrust International for the launch of the Smart Protein Fund, following the firm’s decade of investing in sustainability across their portfolios. The benefits of alternative proteins are clear—healthier diets, lower carbon emissions, and fewer concerns about the ethics of intensive animal farming. By 2035, alternative proteins will very likely capture 11% of the global protein market through organic growth, as consumers, companies, and investors push the values of ESG and parity. And we predict the market for alternatives to meat, especially chicken and seafood, could increase significantly higher still, rising from 2% of total protein consumption in 2020 to more than 20% by 2035, with government support which we are beginning to see today.”
About The Milltrust International Group
The Milltrust International Group is a renowned, award-winning investment company with co-headquarters in London and Singapore that provides a variety of game-changing investment solutions in an effort to address some of the most important issues of our time, such as the growth of emerging economies, rising food demand, technological advancements, and climate change. Pension funds, government agencies, family offices, business owners, and HNWIs are a few examples of clients. The company conducts regulated business in a number of countries, including the UK, Singapore, Ireland, and Cayman.
About Earth First Food Ventures
For healthier customers, a cleaner environment, bluer oceans, and a better world, Earth First Food Ventures (“EFFV”) is a food technology venture capital platform that focuses on ESG/impact investing in food innovations, plant-based, fermentation, and grown proteins. According to EFFV, the world’s population is expanding and needs new protein sources that are less harmful to the environment than the conventional methods of animal-based production. For the benefit of our planet, the environment, the national healthcare system, as well as promoting regional food security and economies, this crucial sector has to be redesigned and funded. Leaders with decades of expertise in the worldwide financial markets created Earth First Food Ventures.
