So we’re focused on four sectors: agriculture, healthcare, energy, and technology. We’ve picked those four because we really do think that they have the ability to be game-changing globally for the world.
If we look at agriculture, we are at one of the most complex and challenging times in agriculture that has ever been experienced. By 2050, it is estimated that we’re going to have to double agricultural production in order to feed the global population.
At the same time, we have to do that with less arable land. We have to do that with fewer natural resources, water, etcetera. We have to do it in an environmentally stable fashion, so fewer chemical inputs, fertilizers, and otherwise. We have to do it with a higher nutritional content.
Consumers demanding a higher nutritional content, they want healthier options. But as it stands right now, the price increases in the cost of delivering that healthy nutritious content are unsustainable. So we’ve got to be able to figure out how to make production cheaper.
But, while that sounds like an incredibly complex problem, that’s where startups and innovation come in. You’ve got companies like Benson Hill or Holganix, that we’ve already invested in, that are helping to solve the yield or nutritional content, or water efficiency or conservation side.
Those are just tremendous opportunities that really are easier tackled by startups than they are by the entrenched infrastructure of agriculture today.
