“Making food accessible is our goal,” says Jason Ingle, founder of non-profit Greener Partners and a General Partner at Closed Loop Capital in a talk with Christopher Skroupa of Skytop Strategies. “I think impact investing presents a new tool in the toolkit for solutions that can scale.”
Closed Loop Capital is an early stage VC in AgTech and food systems ventures in the U.S. and Canada. Greener Partners is a nonprofit dedicated to sustainable farming and farm-based education in Philadelphia.
Closed Loop Capital is one of the growing number of social venture capitalists like Bridges, or Mission Point Partners who have invested $10 billion into AgTech.
Growing Up A Farmer
Raised in the state of New York, Mr. Ingle wanted his children to experience what it is like to grow up as he did, in farming, on an organic family farm and winery in New York’s Finger Lakes region. He wanted his children to know sustainability, and be stewards of their farms and land.
“Our job is to magnify a deep impact in our communities,” adds Mr. Ingle.
Food Innovation’s Significance
As increases in human population and wealth will lift global demand for food by up to 70% by 2050, and as climate change concerns materialize, our current methods for food production and agriculture will not be sustainable. More innovation is needed.
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“I think you’re always going to have a need for philanthropic dollars, which is the ultimate risk capital — it’s going to zero; you’re not going to get it back. That serves a tremendous purpose in continuing to nurture fragile ecosystems.
I think impact investing presents a new tool in the toolkit for a solution that can scale. Before, you might have been able to sustain and maybe slightly ameliorate some of these challenges, but you really didn’t have the ability to create a viable, scalable entity that could really have the thrust to drive towards solutions.
There’s always going to be examples where there’s a potential solution that may never become a viable business, and therefore, philanthropy is going to be needed.
You may be in a very early stage where you can’t attract institutional, or even angel investment yet, and you ultimately need grant funding to test, beta, and prototype until it gets to a more de-risked stage far enough along that impact investment can be made.
I think it’s exciting that for the first time, an individual is able to take an integrated approach in everything they do.
So if your passion is agriculture or food or education, you can take a holistic look at that area of interest that you have a passionate commitment to and you can look across the spectrum from completely philanthropic on one side of it all the way through the continuum to traditional return-oriented and everything in between.
To me, it’s very exciting to be able to take that integrated approach and look for solutions all the way across that spectrum.”
Sources: Forbes, Growing Magazine, TED
