New venture studio Monsoon Ventures to fund South-east Asia agritech startups
It is backed by Enterprise Singapore and the corporate foundation of Dutch lender Rabobank
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[SINGAPORE] Australia-based agriculture focused advisory firm Beanstalk AgTech launched a new venture studio, Monsoon Ventures, in Singapore on Tuesday (Aug 11), backed by Enterprise Singapore (EnterpriseSG) and Rabo Foundation.
Rabo Foundation is the corporate foundation of Dutch bank Rabobank.
This is not the first venture studio Beanstalk AgTech is running, having started the Drought Venture Studio in Australia in March 2024. The Drought Venture Studio has helped to raise over A$22 million (US$15.5 million) and launch 15 commercial projects.
“In South-east Asia, the challenges facing science commercialisation are even more magnified, which is exactly why we’re launching Monsoon Ventures here,” said Justin Ahmed, director, Beanstalk AgTech.
The venture studio will focus on supporting founders as they commercialise agritech solutions that will improve farmer livelihoods, environmental outcomes and regional food security.
Monsoon Ventures will be seeded with S$1.2 million by Beanstalk AgTech, EnterpriseSG and Rabo Foundation and will focus on Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore.
There is a target of funding up to eight ventures within the first two years with the initial capital.
“Over the next five years, the studio’s ambition is to attract and deploy significantly more capital and build a portfolio of more than 30 scalable ventures across South-east Asia, so S$1.2 million represents the starting point rather than the total planned investment,” said Ahmed.
Monsoon Ventures is in conversations with investors and blended finance partners to seek further capital beyond the anchor funding.
The venture studio was founded to address the commercialisation gap in South-east Asia, where technologies that could improve farmer and food security resilience rarely make it to market.
There is no specific technology or segment of agritech that Monsoon Ventures is targeting for its first eight startups, with the focus on value chains across South-east Asia’s farmers.
The studio already has a strong base of validated, under-commercialised technology coming out of regional research institutions.
“Our filter is stage and fit, not sector: proven field validation, a founder team that’s science or engineering led, and a credible path to commercial scale,” said Ahmed.
Currently Monsoon Ventures is driven by Beanstalk AgTech’s commercialisation team, but the studio is hiring three new Singapore-based roles – head of studio, partnerships lead and ventures lead. The intention is to fill these roles by the end of the year, Ahmed added.
Singapore can play a role in regional food security through its strengths as an innovation, financing and commercialisation hub for South-east Asia, said Sharon Tay, director food manufacturing and agri-technology, EnterpriseSG.
“Strengthening regional food resilience requires more than breakthrough innovations – it requires a strong ecosystem that can translate promising ideas into solutions adopted at scale,” said Tay.
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