Host of The Plantbased Business Hour and CEO of VegTech Invest, Elysabeth Alfano, was recently on a panel at the Future of Protein Production conference in Chicago.
Elysabeth was on the panel discussing investing in food systems transformation with Aleh Manchuliantsau, Founder and CEO of Planetarians, Fengru Lin, CEO and co-founder of TurtleTree, and Alex Shirazi, co-founder and director of the Cultivated Meat Symposium. At the links below you can listen to their panel discussion.
Audio clip: https://x.com/ElysabethAlfano/status/1787871566950195407
Podcast link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/future-of-protein-production-2024/id1512473843?i=1000654300710
Below is a transcript of an audio clip from the episode.
Alex Shirazi: There have been a lot of discussions about the downturn in investment in 2024, so that’s what we’re going to jump into. You know, have we seen different types of investment come into the sector outside of traditional VC investors? Outside of VC investment, have we seen other types of funding available for startups?
Elysabeth: I’m happy to answer that. Coming out of COP28, you saw the World Bank saying that food tech is climate tech and as the agricultural sector is responsible for 30% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, animal ag being responsible for 60% of that so 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions coming from animal agriculture, they wanted to see $300 to $500 billion invested every year in food tech for the next ten to fifteen years.
They see that approach coming from blended capital. So that’s VCs, that’s government money, that’s Bezos, Gates, Milken, large philanthropic donors, and then Wall Street which is where I work. I think we’re going to see much more creative, unique financing coming. I’m not even talking about debt financing, but just the straight investing coming down the pipeline that will be blended.
Aleh Manchuliantsau: I think the words “blended capital” is the right phrase for available sources right now. You cannot finance through the venture. We see it’s overloaded with alternative proteins and they just cannot deepen their positions. So the government in the United States is not as active as in Europe. They started opening programs, but mostly for energy, not the food tech. You’re lucky to find the customer here and we’ll stick them all together. You get this blended capital and you move forward.
Elysabeth Alfano is the CEO of VegTech™ Invest, the advisor to the VegTech™ Plant-based Innovation & Climate ETF, EATV. She is also the founder of Plant Powered Consulting and the Host of the Plantbased Business Hour.
