Blog
System C: The Convergence of Food and Health
We're here to talk about food system innovation. When we first started this conference, we talked about agtech, and as investors we also focus on healthcare and the convergence of healthcare and agriculture. Innovation is now being...
Health, Innovation and Happy Returns: iSelect’s Venture Investment Themes for 2021
At iSelect, Food is Health in 2021 and beyond.
We see robust investment opportunities in the technologies transforming the Agriculture, Food and Wellness markets.
As 2021 begins, we highlight several of our key venture investment themes:
iSelect Invests for Impact and Performance: 3 Case Studies
At iSelect, we invest for impact AND performance. We are a research-driven organization dedicated to deep diligence and careful execution.
We invest in companies that are addressing critical global issues, in large markets, and with a projected...
WOULDA, COULDA, SHOULDA
Missing Out is Always a Big Theil
It’s 2004. you’re the first investor in a start-up social media company with 1M users and, you believe a fair valuation. You garner a board seat and watch the rest...
How iSelect is Investing with Impact Without Sacrificing Performance
Impact investing has grown up.
Originally associated with environmental and sustainability causes, the concept is now expanding to include diversity issues, social impact, healthcare and food access and more. Today, it’s about investing in companies that are...
Why the Fly-Over States are Worth More than a Downward Glance
Intuitively we all know innovation is deflationary. Today, you probably wouldn’t spend more than $100 on a terabyte of digital storage. Not that long ago, some companies were fitting entire floors of office buildings and spending a...
COVID-19: A FOCUS ON FUNDAMENTALS
COVID-19 has us questioning what a “new normal” will look like in terms of how we work, travel and invest. It has amplified pre-existing challenges and created new ones.
One key lesson it has taught us across...
Food is Health: How to Access Uncorrelated Growth in 2020
“Food is Health” has driven the iSelect investment process since our start in 2014. Americans spend more than $1.5T each year on food and almost $2T on diet-related illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, obesity and type 2...
Where Does Health Start? In the Ground
Healthy soil is literally the foundation for a healthy food system and is a leading indicator for many key metrics around sustainability and ecological health. As a result, soil health is inextricably linked to plant, animal, human...
What Will COVID-19 Mean for the Future of Healthcare?
While there is very little good to be said about the ongoing COVID-19 situation, we can only hope that we recover from this pandemic while also making the healthcare and food systems better and stronger than they...
Here’s What’s Coming Next in Cancer Diagnostics
In 2019 over 600,000 people died from cancer in the United States alone. One of the primary drivers behind these high mortality rates for cancer is late diagnosis. For this reason, we're seeing increasing demand for noninvasive...
Therapeutics and Inflammation: What’s Coming Next?
Many of the major medical conditions that we face in our lives share an underlying cause: chronic inflammation.
...
Investing at the Nexus of Food and Health
Almost three years ago, iSelect strategically refocused its investment thesis on identifying the synergies between food and healthcare. At the time, food and healthcare were two completely independent, siloed verticals. But, the fact is, the more that...
Propagate Ventures: Planting New Revenue Streams for Farmers
As a company dedicated to regenerative agroforestry solutions, Propagate Ventures works with farmers and land managers to design and install tree-crop systems that work in tandem with existing farm operations....
What the Borden Bankruptcy Tells Us About the Future of Food
As a sailor, I learned a long time ago, it is always darkest before the dawn. Borden is bankrupt. And the dawn is coming.
...
Innovation, Inflation and the New Digital Economy
A decade ago, the U.S. economy was in a bad place.
Still reeling from the financial crisis, 2009 saw ultra-low interest rates and the expectation that years of recovery would call for rates beyond 4% by 2020.
...
What Researchers are Learning About the Biome Might Just Save Your Life… or Kill You
Over Thanksgiving I overheard some parents talking about their children and dating. Apparently some young adults are now using 23andMe to determine compatibility before a date becomes a serious relationship. The parents mentioned an attempt to sneak...
How Blood-Based Diagnostics are Changing Cancer Care
iSelect hosts a Deep Dive webinar on a novel innovation topic on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 9 a.m. central. Our most recent session focused on early cancer diagnosis using blood-based tools. Testing...
Creating a Food System That Works (for Everyone)
Innovation is what drives prices down. That's why we have TVs and computers that are both incredibly powerful and affordable, and why we have healthcare that is incredibly unaffordable.
If food prices had risen at the...
Why Bioavailability is Becoming the Next Buzzword in Agriculture
iSelect hosts a Deep Dive webinar on a novel innovation topic on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 9 a.m. central. Our most recent session focused on bioavailability. By improving the bioavailability...
Why We Created iSelect
The purpose behind what we do at iSelect is simple: we help investors and create great companies. When we started this organization, it was in reaction to a market opportunity that we saw -- the disconnect between...
