Food is Health

Healthy food yields healthy people.

THESIS

We Invest at the Convergence of AgTech and Human Health

At iSelect we invest in agtech, soil, and crop health solutions to meet surging global protein demand, improve the taste, nutrition, and affordability of food, boost farmer profitability, and increase environmental sustainability.

In the health sector, we’re investing in data analysis and delivery technologies that enable early detection, intervention, prevention, and treatment of cardio-metabolic diseases.

MEET OUR PORTFOLIO

HOW TO INVEST

Poor nutrition is driving an unsustainable increase in disease and treatment costs.

The CDC estimates that almost 75% of U.S. adults aged 20 or older are overweight or obese.

Almost half the US population (45%) are either diabetic or prediabetic.

The U.S. alone spends $2T/year treating food related health conditions.

At the same time, agriculture is facing a crisis.

Global population growth of 29% by 2050 will create a huge “protein gap” as 3.5B people around the world enter the middle class.

Demand for protein will rise 100% over the next three decades, driving demand for productivity gains, pushing unsustainable depletion of natural resources, and increase in emissions.

By 2050, the global agriculture industry requires a 67% increase in arable land, 65% more irrigation water. Without innovation, ag-related emissions will increase 85%.

Farmer working in a cornfield, using smartphone

Our Core Areas of Focus

#FoodIsHealth

What we eat directly impacts our health. Innovation reduces the cost of good nutrition, increases access, and improves longevity. Food is Health.

Network Effect

A network of investors, entrepreneurs, early adopter customers and industry experts accelerating innovation and driving exponential transformation that drives health and longevity.

Portfolio Approach

As venture investors, we take a balanced portfolio approach, using diversification, and maximizing optionality, to narrow risk.

Consideration

With 2021 well underway and with public markets still strong, we think it is an important time to highlight some of the key private market, venture investment themes that iSelect fund has identified for the year. We believe technologies transforming the Agriculture, Food and Wellness markets will flourish, with a focus on four areas: technologies that enable better food choices to drive better health outcomes, technologies that drive better, more profitable farm operations, technologies that drive the Consumerization of Healthcare, and biome-based treatment technologies. At iSelect, we invest for impact AND performance. We offer qualified investors access to emerging growth companies through our national venture capital strategy. Our unique structure allows our investors to continue to invest in these companies as they develop.

Timing

Why is now the right time for venture? The answer is that now is not explicitly the right time. Venture is something we need in our economy at all times. Now is not better than any other particular time. The question is, why ever stop? When we look at the challenges we’re facing in food and healthcare the reality is there is someone, somewhere who has an insight about how to build a product that will solve those problems. And if they put the right resources to it, they will succeed. As long as we need new technology to make life better or make our lives more enjoyable, we need venture capital to help fuel those entrepreneurs.

What is iSelect as a product?

iSelect is a very unique product, but when you break it into its parts it’s fairly easy to understand. On the front end we’re a traditional venture capital fund. We have a diligence process. We have an investment process. We have categories of industries where we have focus and real expertise, and we invest in companies in those areas that meet requirements for the fund. On the back end we’re unique in that we don’t raise a large amount of capital at one time and deploy it over the life of our fund. Each deal that we bring onto the fund, our investors have to prove and determine to invest in that deal. We have to constantly prove our diligence standards. It’s accessible, transparent and easy for investors to come in and see our comprehensive process.

What is the ideal iSelect company?

We are looking for founders that are passionate and we want the problem they’re trying to solve to be big, real, and painful. We want the solution to be revolutionary and we want our capital to be able to help them solve that problem. We want to know that they have customers involved and that the solution they’ve come up with actually meets those customers’ and market needs. And we want the team to be capital efficient with the money they’re spending.

What does the ideal iSelect company look like?

We’re looking for a company that has an opportunity to have a 10x return to our investment or greater in a period of three to seven years. What excites us at iSelect are companies that are solving big problems. We want companies that are going to be the Monsantos of the future. Not just in the size and the scope, but the impact they have on people’s lives. We want to create positive impacts on people’s lives, so we invest in areas like agricultural production and areas like producing healthy foods for our kids. They are problems that impact real people’s lives on a daily basis. That’s what we’re trying to do at iSelect. We’re trying to solve the big problems out there. Find ways to bring capital to the entrepreneurs who are the real heroes out there getting up every morning, beating away at these things that are problems that you and me and everyone else faces in their everyday lives.

What is iSelect?

iSelect is a venture capital firm. What that means is we look at hundreds and hundreds of different companies and we apply tough diligence standards to each of them, looking at whether the team has a good plan for growing the business, whether the team is qualified and credible, and more. We do that to resolve the few who provide the best opportunities for investors. And then iSelect takes that smaller set of investments and goes to investors who are interested in venture capital and provides a way for them to invest in these companies, either individually or all at once. We co-invest alongside other venture capitalists. We source transactions through to an exit where the company would become public or get bought. And we manage that whole investment process on behalf of our investors.