Investing in the future of food

Investing in the future of health

Strategic Focus

iSelect is an early stage venture firm which invests in companies that are addressing critical global issues, in large markets, and with financially attractive business models.

Deep Diligence

Careful, expert diligence is a key determining factor in successful venture investing. We are among the strongest in the industry, spending up to 120 hours conducting due diligence on each of our portfolio companies.

Portfolio Approach

We take a balanced portfolio approach, using diversification to narrow risk. We build platforms of investment, making sure we have multiple approaches to the market.

Investing in Opportunity

Wealth Managers

Access a novel alternative product that will differentiate your practice for existing and prospective clients.

Individual Investors

Accredited investors can access high quality, venture backed offerings, at reasonable minimums, on a monthly basis.

Family Offices

Opportunities to invest in Tier 1 venture offerings, at lower fees, and alongside national VCs and corporations.

Institutions

We are an emerging manager with a regional focus outside the coasts and in companies making an impact.

Portfolio News

Solving the Public Health Crisis by Making Healthy Nutrition as Addictive as Sugar

The modern world has a serious problem with sugar. The average American consumes more than 129 pounds of the stuff each year, according to the USDA, more than double what we ate two generations ago. And, unlike in previous decades when most sweeteners came from cane...

Investing with Impact: The New Rules of Making a Difference

iSelect was not conceived as an impact investment fund. When we started the idea was (and continues to be) to find the best and brightest entrepreneurs outside of Silicon Valley and make lots of small bets investing to support them in their new ventures. When the winners emerge, double down on those. This is investment strategy, not altruism at play.

Why It Matters That We’re Talking About Gender Discrimination in Agriculture

Agrilyst CEO Allison Kopf has something to say. After several years in agriculture, she’s seen the impact that gender discrimination can have on women in the industry, leaving them feeling overlooked, marginalized and left out, particularly when it comes to conference...

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.