Limagrain enters into partnership with StartLife

On 10 December 2019, startup accelerator Startlife and seed company Limagrain announced a partnership for a close collaboration in the next three years. The partnership is aimed at moving agriculture forward to meet the huge food challenges that our world faces. Limagrain will benefit from early access to innovative projects from qualified startups, dealing with all the value chain regarding agriculture, emerging technologies, new processes and new food products fitting with strategic needs.

Fulfilling global food needs

The partnership between Limagrain and StartLife will help face the challenge to feed close to 10 billion people by 2050. “In order to fill our global food needs we must increase our agricultural production by more than 70%, whilst taking climate changes into account and preserving our invaluable natural resources at the same time. This partnership will also aid in developing and improving agriculture practices, for everybody and everywhere and in accelerating innovative and responsible agri-food solutions”, says Valérie Mazza, head of Scientific Affairs and Innovation of Limagrain.

Innovation and scouting partner

StartLife, which is based on Wageningen Campus, the heart of Foodvalley, will be Limagrain’s innovation and scouting partner. The accelerator will support Limagrain to further expand its innovation ecosystem by acting as a connector and early startup innovation enabler with agri-entrepreneurs. Valérie Mazza: “We chose StartLife as our partner because they are the leading food and agritech startup accelerator in Europe and have a great track record as intermediary between corporates and startups.”

Opening doors for startups

Jan Meiling, managing director of StartLife, is also very excited to welcome Limagrain as new partner. “Entrepreneurs who enter into StartLife’s programs will immediately benefit from this partnership. It provides them with in-depth industry knowledge, capabilities to scaleup upstream technologies, access to other partners in the value chain, as well as valuable reality checks.”