Australians look to World Agri-Tech to fill horticulture, grains backing pipeline

For more than 30 years, Australia’s rural R&D corporations have partnered with traditional work providers to drive innovation that solves sector challenges. And they’re hoping to find them at the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in London next week. “Investing in Australia is a huge North Star for us, but we’ve got an additional A$500 million over the next decade to seize big opportunities and deliver the range of solutions planters want. And we can’t rely just on Australian agtech firms to do that.” Delivered through proven procurement approaches, this ongoing stream beckons strategic collaborations, inviting stakeholders from all corners of the trade to join forces to advance sector innovation.

For Hort Innovation ’s Jesse Reader, World Agri-Tech is the perfect place to scout early-stage innovations that could benefit Australia’s horticulture trade. We want to connect stakeholders through the platform to drive the commercialisation of innovation that will go on to solve these shared problems,” explained Mellish.

New approach to procuring innovation Hort Innovation is one of Australia’s rural investigation and development corporations – a unique model for agricultural innovation where Australia’s federal the authorities and primary growers co-invest to drive industry-relevant work. Tailored to specific sectors (15 in total, from horticulture to dairy, grains, and wine) ‘the RDCs’ have helped drive Australian agricultural innovation since 1989.

But there’s a growing appetite for new co-investment approaches that are more ambitious, attract new backers, and deliver transformative innovation streams. To propel the horticulture sector forward fast, and at scale, Hort Innovation has introduced three co-leveraged backing pathways with A$500 million of uncontracted potential: Australian-grown Innovation to nurture grassroots innovation – supporting planters and supply chain partners to pressure test their ideas or validate a business model.

Incubate and Accelerate to launch Australian and international startups wanting to scale their solution within the horticulture domain. And the Hort Innovation Venture Fund , which will channel resources into Australian and international high-growth early-stage startups to propel innovative products and services into grower hands.

Fertile testing ground for European innovators Australia is widely regarded as a test bed for international agtech solutions – with its diverse climate zones, varied production systems, and high adoption of technology. But partnering with an RDC like Hort Innovation takes the value proposition up a level. “I keep asking myself, ‘What are we doing that’s different to others?’” stated Jesse Reader. “Because we’re not the first people to play in the area of accelerators and incubators [and funds]”. “But we’ve got the biggest hort address book in Australia.

Now in its 20 th year, the certified B Corp manages money for the authorities organisations, pension and superannuation funds, insurance firms, family offices, corporations, and industry groups. Among them is Australia’s Grains Research and Development Corporation – GRDC – and its GrainInnovate venture fund. Artesian Senior Manager Agrifood, Victoria Prowse, explained that the partnership yielded more than just fund management. “Artesian is a sector-focused VC business with a key specialization in agrifood.

Our unique VCaaS (Venture Capital as a Service) platform enables the authorities organizations, sector groups, corporations. Research institutes to leverage the financial and strategic returns of high-growth startups. GrainInnovate, launched in partnership with GRDC six years ago, is one of our earliest VCaaS collaborations,” she stated.

The idea was to establish a platform that enabled GRDC to participate in private equity trades to invest into emerging technologies – but as a single LP (Limited Partner). “It was paramount that they had full control over their strategic mandates and investment fit,” added Prowse. International startups stand to benefit from partnering with Australia’s RDCs, too. “Every Australian grain grower invests into GRDC, providing an enormous strategic network that’s incredibly powerful for a startup to leverage,” explained Prowse. “[As Jesse explained,] being invested in by an RDC is incredibly beneficial from a strategic level, not just a financial one. That’s what’s really exciting.” Joining Artesian, Hort Innovation, and GRDC on their UK/ Europe trade mission are dairy trade investigation and development corporation, Dairy Australia , and end-to-end Australian grain trader, GrainCorp – whose A$30M GrainCorp Venture Fund invests across agtech, animal nutrition and food innovation.