Update on HighQuest Group's Global Agtech Investing Event

Date:05-31-2017

Agtech disruptors, innovators, and investors alike will gather at the third annual Global AgInvesting (GAI) AgTech Week, here, June 26-28 at the Marriott Long Wharf to examine agtech opportunities, trends, and breakthrough technologies, and find their piece of the multi-billion dollar sector.

According to the consulting group at HighQuest, the hosts of GAI AgTech Week, those most interested in agtech investments are strategic players and private/angel/venture investors, but there has been surprisingly strong interest from institutional investors. Why?

Greg Mellinger, CEO of HighQuest, explained, "After 10 years of substantial farmland, infrastructure, and midstream allocations, institutional investors, the farm managers they hire, and the farmers leasing their land, are all faced with identical pressures to improve crop and financial yields of their assets, and to do so as sustainably as possible. 'Doing more with less' is the dominant theme - this is where agtech provides the most leverage. These endowments, pensions, sovereign wealth funds, and large scale family offices are, therefore, turning their attention to agtech's potential to play an important role in generating value for their assets in the short and long terms."

Investments in agtech remain a solid choice for any investor looking for strong returns, diversification, and improved agricultural asset performance. This is evidenced by a sharp increase in investment in the agtech space this year, according to Crunchable, where agtech startups raised more than $320 million thus far in 2017, a more than three- fold increase over the same period last year.

"The business case for agtech has never been better, and this gathering, which features ag investors from our nearly decade-old Global AgInvesting network, has the unique ability to fill the room with those from both sides of the equation," said Kate Westfall, managing director and chair of AgTech Initiatives for Global AgInvesting. "We are practiced in the art of bringing sector-focused investors to the table who are ready to support new opportunities."

Several up-to-the-minute topics will be examined at GAI AgTech Week. These include:

1.  Blockchain - Blockchain, the distributed database technology that maintains a continuously growing list of secure records, could be a platform for the next generation of agricultural innovation. Experts from Blockchain pioneer IBM will be on-hand to explore the opportunities that lay ahead with this revolutionary technology that can bring complete transparency to the industry.


2. Opportunities in Agriculture Waste Stream - New agtech is currently being deployed to leverage waste to increase efficiency, improve sustainability, and uncover new profits. Massachusetts is leading the charge in this space, where in the U.S. alone, it is reported that 40 percent of the food produced goes to waste at a staggering cost.

3.  Tackling the Farm Labor Crisis - A panel of experts from different stages of the value chain will discuss how farmers are turning to innovative combinations of hardware and software to both use labor more efficiently and address rising labor costs.

Hundreds will gather at GAI AgTech Week to source deals, build partnerships, and grow the agriculture technology sector worldwide.