AgFunder

AgFunder is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm founded in 2013 by Michael Dean and Rob Leclerc to back technology companies working on food, agriculture, and human and planetary health. The firm describes its roots as agrifood, AI, biology and climate, and states more than $300 million in assets under management across more than 100 portfolio companies on four continents. Its stated approach is to invest in the limiting factors on progress in these systems rather than in incremental farm software, targeting foundational technologies that remove structural bottlenecks to sustainable scale. In practice that means artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics and biotechnology applied to agrifood and health, disciplines AgFunder argues now reinforce each other rather than operating in silos. AgFunder is unusual among agrifoodtech investors in running media, research and engineering arms alongside the investment team. It publishes AgFunderNews and the annual AgFunder Global AgriFoodTech Investment Report, whose 2025 edition put global agrifoodtech funding at $16 billion for 2024, a 4 percent decline from the prior year. An in-house engineering group, hired years before most peers built data teams, supports deal sourcing and market intelligence for the portfolio and for the firm's limited partners. AgFunder says it has historically outperformed top-quartile venture benchmarks and frequently co-invests with large generalist venture firms. Investments span controlled-environment agriculture, cultivated protein, crop biologicals and bioactive discovery, including Bowery Farming, Plenty, Memphis Meats, Indigo Agriculture and Brightseed, alongside positions such as Aigen in autonomous weeding robots and Faeth in clinical-grade nutrition for cancer care. The partnership includes Dean and Leclerc, Manuel Gonzalez, formerly of Rabobank, and Louisa Burwood-Taylor, who leads the firm's research and communications.