Seeds Capital, partners to co-invest over S$90m in agri-food tech startups

ENTERPRISE Singapore investment arm Seeds Capital has appointed seven co-investment partners to pump more than S$90 million into Singapore agri-food tech startups.

Partners were selected based on their investment track record, strong commercialisation resources, networks and expertise, and familiarity with the local startup ecosystem in the agri-food tech space.

The partners are: Openspace Ventures, a Series A venture capital fund in Singapore; AgFunder, a global agri-food tech venture capital platform; Hatch, an aquaculture-focused startup accelerator and innovation platform; ID Capital, a Singapore investment firm specialising in agri-food tech in the Asia-Pacific; global agrifood tech accelerator The Yield Lab; Catalist-listed startup incubator Trendlines; and, Singapore-based agri-food venture fund VisVires New Protein.

Seeds Capital will co-invest in the ratio of 7:3 for the first S$500,000 of investment and up to S$4 million for each deep-tech startup.

Ted Tan, chairman of Seeds Capital and deputy chief executive of Enterprise Singapore, said: "Agritech is an important sector as we work towards the vision of developing Singapore into a leading food and nutrition hub in Asia. By leveraging on the expertise from the private sector, we will catalyse deep tech innovation through high-potential startups to develop disruptive food and agritech solutions, and reduce our reliance on food imports."

The newly appointed partners join 18 other Seeds Capital co-investment partners. Over the past three years, Seeds Capital and its partners have co-invested over S$130 million in more than 60 startups in advanced manufacturing and engineering, health and biomedical sciences, services and digital economy, and urban solutions and sustainability.

These sectors are aligned with the core domains of Singapore's roadmap for research and development under the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2020 plan, said Enterprise Singapore.