Adisseo and Seventure Partners announce €24m first close of new fund for Animal Health and Nutrition

22 Mar 2018 --- French venture capital firm Seventure Partners has launched a venture capital fund targeted at supporting companies in the field of animal health, feed and nutrition, called AVF. The first close of AVF, at €24 million, is corner stoned by Adisseo, an industry heavyweight in the animal feed sector. AVF’s investment strategy will reportedly focus 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.

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 livestock industry. As a result, the livestock sector is undergoing profound changes requiring the entire food chain to adapt accordingly. Within the animal health sector, food digestibility, its nutritional value and energy potential and the traceability of the entire animal food chain are major opportunities, Seventure notes.

In addition to the animal health and nutrition sector, the digital agricultural technology field has seen exponential growth. AVF will also finance digital innovations applied to the livestock value chain, such as smart breeding and diagnosis, control and traceability tools, Seventure reports.

AVF is to primarily invest in innovative companies in Europe, North America and Israel, but will also be open to strong investment proposals from other geographies, including Asia.

“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 financial institutional investors,” states Isabelle de Cremoux, CEO and Managing Partner at Seventure Partners.

“We have launched funds in Digital technologies as well as in Life sciences. After the successful launch of Health for Life Capital, which raised €160 million with strategic partners such as Danone, Novartis, Tereos, Lesaffre and Bel to invest in the microbiome, digital innovation and in human health/nutrition/food, we are now launching AVF, a new fund in animal health and nutrition.”

Commenting on the need for and focus of the fund, Isabelle de Cremoux added: “This new thematic fund was created to address a very specific and expanding need in the market: preserving animal health, gaining a better understanding of the entire food value chain, as well as developing technologies to cultivate and produce food in a better way.

Jean-Marc Dublanc, CEO of Adisseo, states: “Adisseo is a unique company committed to strategic investments in new disruptive technologies, in order to enrich our portfolio of R&D innovations while respecting a mode of sustainable growth. Our ambition is to become one of the leaders in Feed Ingredient Specialties and the experienced partner of choice in animal nutrition.”

“With AVF, our goal is to invest in strategic collaborations combining the agility of start-ups with Adisseo’s expertise. As such, Seventure was a natural partner of choice and we are pleased to become a strategic investor in AVF,” Dublanc concludes.