Investment Climate

On unlocking Canada’s $7B AgTech boom and solving the scale-up "Valley of Death" - Mike Wolsfeld, AgWest Bio
Investment Climate Podcast: Fundraising Playbooks From Food Tech CEOs and VCs 
In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.
Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners, Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.
Episode 74: AgWest Bio: Mike Wolsfeld on unlocking Canada’s $7B AgTech boom and solving the scale-up "Valley of Death" 
In this episode, I sit down with Mike Wolsfeld, who manages the Techcom Fund at AgWest Bio. Operating as an equity investment fund ($50k–$300k checks) embedded inside a non-profit, Mike shares how they are turning Saskatchewan into a global magnet for precision fermentation and ag-tech startups. We discuss their unique mandate: attracting international deep-tech companies (like Argentina's Ergo) to the Canadian Prairies without forcing them to move their headquarters. Mike breaks down how their GAAP (Global Agri-Food Advancement Partnership) facility bridges the critical scale-up gap between bench science and commercial co-manufacturing, and why Canada’s crown corporations, like Farm Credit Canada (FCC), are deploying a historic $7 billion into the sector despite a broader VC downturn. 
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Mike’s advice on how foreign startups can tap into Canada's massive pools of non-dilutive capital.
Key Facts AgWest Bio:
Goal: To invest in and support early-stage ag-tech and food-tech companies by leveraging Saskatchewan's deep agricultural history, biotech talent pool, and specialized infrastructure.
Milestone: Actively deploying a $7M evergreen fund while scaling the GAAP facility to help international precision fermentation companies seamlessly enter the Canadian ecosystem.
Alex’s Top Findings:
The "Gateway to Canada" Geo-Arbitrage. AgWest Bio offers a highly founder-friendly entry into the Canadian ecosystem. Unlike many regional funds that demand a full headquarters relocation, Mike’s fund only requires a federally incorporated subsidiary and 1-2 local employees. This allows international founders to access Canada's massive non-dilutive grants and specialized infrastructure without disrupting their global cap tables. "We're not asking for companies to entirely reincorporate, move everything here, move families... really, at minimum, what it looks like is a federally incorporated company with at least one or two full-time employees here in the province... I'm not interested in forcing companies to move here; I'm interested in supporting companies in their existing strategy."
Bridging the Fermentation "Valley of Death". The hardest part of precision fermentation isn't the lab science; it's scaling from milliliters to commercial thousands of liters. AgWest Bio manages the GAAP facility to explicitly solve this missing middle step, providing heavily discounted, shared-use bioreactors (5L to 100L) to get startups ready for large-scale co-manufacturing. "We're really trying to fill what we saw as a gap between that lab scale, bench scale, and scale up... taking things out of an academic sort of research stage into that pre-commercialization... proving that it can scale up from milliliters to liters to 10 liters to sort of 20, 50."
The $7 Billion Crown Corporation Lifeline. While traditional VC fundraising in Canada hit historic lows recently, the AgTech sector is experiencing a massive, counter-cyc

Episode 73: CJ Foods: Auroni Majumdar on the Open Innovation Playbook and bypassing the Western retail trap 
In this episode, I sit down with Auroni Majumdar, Vice President of R&D Global Open Innovation at CJ Foods. Auroni pulls back the curtain on how a global food giant evaluates external technology, revealing why it operates on a strict 6-to-24-month horizon rather than chasing 10-year moonshots. We discuss the eight core product categories CJ cares about, why a startup's regulatory and shelf-life readiness is non-negotiable, and how startups can bypass the grueling 3-year Western retail reset cycle by leveraging CJ's vertical integration in Asian markets. Finally, Auroni outlines a highly unique "Triangle Partnership" where CJ’s Bio division provides the fermentation scale-up capacity while the Foods division acts as the guaranteed offtake customer. 
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Auroni’s advice on how to build an internal champion and why pitching technology without doing your homework on their current unit economics is a major red flag.
Key Facts CJ Foods:
Goal: To source mature, externally developed technologies (ingredients, process, packaging) to drive immediate growth across 8 global strategic categories (including dumplings, Korean fried chicken, kimchi, and sauces).
Milestone: Successfully integrated 6 distinct technology adoptions (including sweeteners, sensors, and solid-state fermentation capabilities) within the last calendar year.
Alex’s Top Findings:
The "Near-Term" Mandate: No Science Projects. Auroni is exceptionally clear: CJ Foods is in the business of using technology, not commercializing raw academic research. If your tech is 3-4 years away from regulatory approval or commercial scale, it is too early for their core pipeline. They prioritize solutions with proven unit economics, and that can hit the market within 6 to 24 months. "I want to do what we do well, or CJ does well, right? What we do well is we launch products fast on a global basis... I don't want to spend money doing research projects. That's not what I do. That's not my business model... I'm a great user. I'm a great evaluator."
Bypassing the Western Retail Trap. Startups often get mesmerized by the idea of landing a massive Western FMCG contract, ignoring that nationwide US distribution—dictated by rigid big-box retailer shelf resets and mandatory shelf-life studies—can take over 3 years to execute. Auroni highlights that CJ offers a faster, more nimble alternative through its vertical integration and the inherently quicker innovation cycles of Asian markets. "In the US, nationwide distribution requires your big box retailers... inherently, if you're a startup that's working in this system... you're already at three years in this system... CJ in Korea can move extremely fast. We're very vertically integrated... it might not be as big as [a Western MNC], but it'll be big and meaningful, and it'll be quicker."
The CJ "Triangle" of Scale: Foods + Bio + Startup. One of the most unique advantages CJ offers precision fermentation startups is its internal structure. CJ can facilitate a three-way partnership: the startup provides the IP, the CJ Bio Foundry provides the heavy CapEx fermentation scale-up, and the CJ Foods division acts as the built-in, guaranteed offtake customer. "Where there's offtake demand from the food side, where there's a technology provider that needs scale-up capability... and then there's a business [CJ Bio] that has fermentation capability and connecting that triangle in a way that there's mutual benefit across the three parties."

Harmony Baby Nutrition: Del Afonso shares how to get funded in 2026
Investment Climate Podcast: Fundraising Playbooks From Food Tech CEOs and VCs 
In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.
Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners, Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.
Episode 72: Harmony Baby Nutrition: Del Afonso on Geo-Arbitrage, securing a $6M Brazilian grant, and bypassing the infant formula cartel 
In this episode, I sit down with Del Afonso, Founder and CEO of Harmony Baby Nutrition. Del shares his masterclass on "geo-arbitrage"—how he bypassed the exorbitant costs of the Boston biotech bubble by setting up formulation labs in Brazil and analytical labs in Hong Kong, stretching his 18-month runway significantly. We dive into how his team successfully secured a massive $6M non-dilutive grant from the Brazilian Development Agency to build a local manufacturing and R&D hub. Del also explains his bold pivot away from the endless R&D cycle to commercialize their "Generation 1" product via a Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) brand, rather than falling into the B2B ingredient trap with legacy corporations.
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear why powdered formula is fundamentally flawed and how Harmony is raising a $2M bridge round to bring a sterile, liquid alternative to the market.
Key Facts Harmony Baby Nutrition:
Goal: To revolutionize the $100B infant nutrition industry by creating a sterile, human-breastmilk-based liquid formula that supports gut microbiome health without industrially added sugars.
Milestone: Secured a $6M grant from the Brazilian Development Agency to build an R&D and manufacturing center, and is currently raising a $2M convertible note to drive the commercial launch of their Gen 1 product in the US.
Alex’s Top Findings:
The Geo-Arbitrage Playbook: Extending Runway with Global R&D. Operating a biotech startup in Cambridge, MA, is prohibitively expensive. Del’s solution was to keep the HQ in the US but offshore the heavy scientific lifting. By utilizing highly qualified PhDs in Brazil and leveraging 70% wage reimbursement programs in Hong Kong, Harmony drastically cut their burn rate. "We grew up on scarcity. Big time... The amount of money we were paying for a senior researcher in the US, we can hire four to five researchers in Brazil. So it's unbelievable the difference... It's a strategic way that we can balance a bit of the high cost of doing science within the Boston area."
Drawing the Line on the "Endless" R&D Cycle. Many deep-tech founders get stuck in the lab perfecting their technology while their runway evaporates. Del realized that to survive the current fundraising winter, they had to draw a hard line in the sand, freeze the "Generation 1" formula, and pivot entirely to commercialization to prove revenue traction before attempting a Series A. "Doing R&D could be like an endless process. And how do you actually get a point, okay, we have enough... I got all the researchers... to say listen, this is the deadline for this... If not, we're gonna turn on the key, we're gonna do only the commercial work."
Value Capture Requires a B2C Brand, Not a B2B Partnership. While selling a patented ingredient to a giant like Nestlé seems like the easier path, it leaves the startup with zero bargaining power. Del emphasizes that in monopolistic industries, the only way to truly capture the value of your innovatio

Kost Capital: Bodil Sidén shares how to get funded in 2026
Investment Climate Podcast: Fundraising Playbooks From Food Tech CEOs and VCs 
In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.
Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners, Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.
Episode 71: Kost Capital: Bodil Sidén on the "Trojan Horse" B2B strategy and redefining the VC Power Law 
In this episode, I sit down with Bodil Sidén, General Partner at Kost Capital, a Copenhagen-based €20M early-stage venture fund and food tech studio. Bodil explains why the first wave of food tech struggled by focusing on low-margin B2C outputs, and why Kost Capital’s playbook revolves strictly around high-margin "inputs" (ingredients and enabling tech) functioning as "Trojan horses" for the existing food industry. We discuss their unique venture studio model—building "inception cases" from scratch in their basement test kitchen—and why €250k–€750k pre-seed checks are the perfect vehicle to co-lead deals alongside generalist VCs. Bodil also breaks down her thesis on the convergence of GLP-1s, wearable health tech, and the functional food transition, sharing insights from recent investments like Amass and Nordic Biofoods. 
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear why Bodil is actively looking for "insanely impatient" founders who aren't afraid to stalk their customers.
Key Facts Kost Capital:
Goal: To invest in high-margin B2B inputs (ingredients and enabling tech) that drive the global nutrition transition without forcing mass behavioral change.
Milestone: Successfully launched a €20M fund backed by strong anchor investors, including EIFO (the Danish Sovereign Wealth Fund), featuring an integrated in-house test kitchen and team of chefs to incubate startups.
Alex’s Top Findings:
The "Trojan Horse" Strategy: B2B Inputs over B2C Outputs. The era of launching low-margin, capital-intensive B2C meat alternatives is challenging. Kost Capital focuses on high-value ingredients (colorants, texturizers, Omega-3s) and enabling software that plugs directly into the existing 95% of the food industry. This avoids the need to build expensive new factories or fight food giants for grocery shelf space. "We don't really take a bet on new behaviors or anything, but want to improve what's already on the plate out there... If you look at the outputs that often have very low margins and that are competing with large food corporates with sort of insane distribution and marketing budgets... it just doesn't really add up."
Redefining the VC "Power Law" for FoodTech. For a €20M fund, you don't need a single 100x unicorn IPO to return the fund. Bodil argues that the FoodTech exit market relies heavily on trade sales and acquisitions by massive food corporates. By utilizing their venture studio to mitigate early risk, Kost Capital can target highly realistic acquisition sizes while maintaining a healthy fund return. "The advantage of having a 20 million fund is that to have a fund returner, you need obviously a smaller exit... in the food space, if you look at the exit market, it is often a trade sale or like an acquisition... we also have an opportunity to mitigate a little bit more and have a few more actually pretty solid exits across the portfolio."
Customer Stalking over "Dusty IP." Too many deep-tech founders fall in love with their lab research without actually testing market demand. Bodil emphasizes that

V5 Verde Equity: Kristian Bennetsen shares how to get funded in 2026
Investment Climate Podcast: Fundraising Playbooks From Food Tech CEOs and VCs 
In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.
Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners, Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.
Episode 70: V5 Food and Ag Bio Fund: Kristian Bennetsen on the €2B Co-Investment Opportunity and the "CDMO Play" for Cultured Meat 
In this episode, I sit down with Kristian Bennetsen, General Partner of V5 Verde Equity and the newly launched V5 Food and Ag Bio Fund. With a target of €50M and a first close of €20M imminent, Kristian is targeting the often-neglected TRL 7-9 stage—companies with proven, operational technology ready to scale. Drawing on his experience founding Roslin Technologies (the UK’s largest ag-tech startup), Kristian breaks down his unique "Co-Investment" strategy, which unlocks up to €2B in infrastructure capital to help portfolio companies build factories in Asia and the Middle East. We discuss why he is betting on CDMOs (Contract Development and Manufacturing Organizations) rather than consumer brands in cellular agriculture, and why land-based aquaculture (RAS) is a core thesis for 2025. 
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear why Kristian puts his own personal capital into the fund to keep his "hand on the stove."
Key Facts V5 Verde Equity:
Goal: To invest in Northern European animal life science and ag-tech companies at the commercialization stage (TRL 7-9).
Milestone: Launching a €50M fund with a specialized €2B co-investment facility to finance heavy CapEx infrastructure projects globally.
Alex’s Top Findings:
The "Infrastructure Gap" Solution: A €2B Co-Investment Vehicle. VC money is for IP and teams; it isn't efficient for building steel in the ground. Kristian has structured a vehicle that allows sovereign wealth funds and corporates (specifically in the Middle East and Asia) to step in and fund the €100M+ production facilities needed by portfolio companies once the tech is proven. This allows the VC fund to stay agile while still enabling massive scale. "This is like one co-investment opportunity to follow the company around the globe... setting up production facilities in these key markets... It requires north of a hundred million euros to do such an infrastructure investment... The co-investment opportunities arise from that."
The "CDMO" Bet: Don't Pick the Horse, Own the Racetrack. In the volatile cellular agriculture market, betting on a single consumer brand or cell line is risky. Kristian’s contrarian thesis is to invest in the infrastructure (CDMOs) that will process any winning cell line. He believes the immediate value lies in high-margin ingredients (coffee, chocolate, cosmetics) rather than commodity meat, which struggles with unit economics. "I have a really high conviction to scaling a cultured meat with the right CDMO player... You don't know which cell line is gonna prevail and succeed in 20 years' time. But if you have the infrastructure to funnel through, you can always buy in the lines or work with a new player."
Personal Capital as Conviction Signal. Kristian's investment of his own capital into the fund serves as a powerful conviction signal and a clear statement of alignment between GP and LPs. As he put it, “Of course I would invest my own money… if I don’t put my own money in there, why should other people do it?” That mindset reinforces tr