NEW TECH FOODS

Climate tech venture capital firm At One Ventures has announced the close of a $375 million second fund.

The fund focuses on backing early-stage start-ups with disruptive technologies that can improve planetary health, such as food and agriculture, buildings and construction and energy and transportation.

The fund was raised from a group of partners including GenZero, World Wildlife Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, CalSTRS and New Mexico State Investment Council.

Helen Lin, partner, At One Ventures, said: "It's going to take a different kind of thinking than what got us into the climate crisis to get us out. That's why we've invested in founders coming from a variety of backgrounds and on a global scale, ranging from academics and scientists to investment bankers and scale-up veterans. We value diversity of thought so we can get a multi-faceted and in-depth understanding of problems in order to find tangible solutions."

At One says that 40% of the founders it has backed are part of tradtionally under-represented groups such as “BIPOC and female”. It has a globally distributed portfolio with companies in North America, Europe, Africa, South America and Israel.

According to the firm, its investment thesis is based on “the Triad, which consists of: a disruptive deep tech that ushers in radically better unit economics paired with radically better environmental economics”.

The venture firm’s managing partner Tom Chi commented: "This combination eliminates most adoption friction as the industry gets to upgrade their production in a way that will be massively more profitable, all while their core production gets much more aligned with planetary health. Our team, who all have backgrounds in physical sciences, engineering, manufacturing, or finance, are well-positioned to deeply evaluate physical/hardware businesses that could make a huge difference.”

He continued: “Specifically, we look for 'invention catalysts' which are technologies that not only improve upon the domain of the invention itself but also have the potential to ripple-change entire systems of production and use. It is technology that makes us reimagine what is possible for living on a healthy planet. We then get detailed and disciplined in understanding what it will take to commercialise that technology and successfully displace existing brownfield approaches."

Examples of invention catalysts in At One's portfolio include:

• Finless Foods: First to achieve more than 50% cultivated cell composition of lab-grown bluefin tuna

• Dalan Animal Health: The world's first USDA-approved vaccine for honeybees

• Halo Car: First to offer remote-piloted electric vehicle transportation to paying customers

This is the second fund for At One Ventures – in October 2021 the firm closed a $150 million round – bringing its total to more than half a billion. There are currently 35 companies in the firm's portfolio invested in the past three years, with eleven already booking product sales.