adisseo, an overseas company affiliated to bluestar, and seventure partners, a european venture capital company, recently announced the establishment of avf, an innovation venture capital fund dedicated to animal health, feed, and nutrition. avf's initial funding was €24m.
seventure partners, the world's leader of venture capital in life sciences, focuses on innovative financing and serves as the manager of avf. adisseo, a main investor of avf and the world's leading producer of animal nutrition additives, leads the global market with its main products and boasts advanced technologies and patents in methionine production.
the livestock sector is undergoing profound changes requiring the entire food chain to adapt accordingly and respond to strong global pressures and changing consumer expectations. the rapidly growing world population and the increased demand from emerging countries for animal protein present significant challenges to the sector, as well as the requirement to meet environmental objectives and for sustainable production within the livestock industry.
at a global level, avf’s investment strategy focuses on two segments at the forefront of the modern agricultural and livestock revolution: animal health, feed and nutrition, and digital technologies serving the livestock industry.
within the animal health and nutrition sector, food digestibility, its nutritional value and energy potential, and the improvement of the entire animal food chain are significant investment opportunities, as well as addressing the challenges around limiting the environmental footprint of the industry.
also, the digital agricultural technology field has seen exponential growth, partly driven by climate change and scarcity in resources and biodiversity, as well as heightened pressure from increasingly demanding consumers. avf will also finance digital innovations applied to the livestock value chain, such as smart breeding and diagnosis, feed control and traceability tools.
avf will primarily invest in innovative companies in europe and north america but will also be open to strong investment proposals from other geographies including asia.
isabelle de cremoux, ceo and managing partner at seventure partners, stated: “since the implementation of our new strategy in 2013, we have launched several institutional funds with defined investment themes, connecting prestigious strategic investors with serial entrepreneurs and institutional financial investors. we have launched funds in digital technologies as well as in life sciences, raising €160m. our strategic partners include danone, novartis, tereos, lesaffre, and bel. we are now launching avf, a new fund in animal health and nutrition.”
isabelle de cremoux added: “this new fund was created to address a very specific and expanding need in the market: preserving animal health and developing technologies to cultivate and produce food in a better way. we are proud to count adisseo among the privileged partners who share our vision, and we will announce our first investments in the near future.”
jean-marc dublanc, ceo of adisseo, said that adisseo is a company committed to driving business development through innovations and technologies, in order to enrich our product line and portfolio of r&d innovations while respecting a model of sustainable growth. with avf, our goal is to invest in strategic collaborations combining the agility of start-ups with adisseo’s expertise. we are pleased to become a strategic investor in avf.