Roquette Ventures

Our mission is to bring the Danone Manifesto to life by partnering with a tribe of disruptive entrepreneurs. We are a corporate venture group located in New York City and Paris that is part of a global food and beverage company with a unique manifesto and world-class expertise and resources. Together with our portfolio companies, we aim to create a healthy and sustainable future of food.

The world is entering a new era of food and agriculture transformation. Long-term consumer trends towards health and sustainability, along with a growing and more affluent population, are driving the demand for more efficient and sustainable food production methods. Fueled by recent technological breakthroughs, increasing government support, and a focus on resource allocation, the traditional agriculture industry is facing significant disruption and pressure to adapt. Lever VC backs the entrepreneurs creating the future of food and agriculture. What we look for Lever VC invests in companies creating the future of food and agriculture, encompassing anything that drives improvements in sustainability and ESG targets in the current food system. For novel ingredient companies, such as providers of sustainable commodity goods, nutraceuticals, proteins, flavorings, or fats, we look to invest in companies with significantly improved quality, price, sustainability, and functionality, that demonstrate product-market fit. For technology-driven companies across the food and agriculture supply chain, we look to invest as early as possible in global or regional pioneers of technologies that create ingredients, inputs, services, machinery, or products that generate significant improvements compared to state-of-the-art incumbents and have a clear path to market-accessible price points. For product-driven companies in the better-for-you, pet food, and plant-based space, we look to invest early in companies that are #1 or #2 in quality in their broad geographic region, in product categories with large total addressable markets that are not over-saturated, and that have demonstrated early sales traction and strong weekly unit turnover. In all categories, we look for reasonable deal terms and fantastic founding teams with the vision, work ethic, good judgment, intelligence, and self-awareness needed to build an incredibly successful company. Lever VC conducts robust, lead-level due diligence before every investmentSourcing Lever sources deals from our extensive personal networks in the sector, robust inbound cold contacts, incubator and accelerator partners, and trade media and sales channel monitoring. Tracking The Fund tracks and monitors over 5,000 companies in the protein landscape through its proprietary database, allowing for robust peer analysis and early detection of breakout growth. Scientific and Technical Review Lever utilizes its in-house scientific expertise to conduct extensive technical review on all relevant deals via interviews, data analysis, IP and academic literature reviews, and site visits. Due Diligence The Fund conducts lead-level due diligence before all investments, including financial modeling, returns analysis, taste panels, site visits, competitor analysis, and general financial and strategy reviews. Lever VC's deep sector experience allows it to provide portfolio companies with much more than just capital The Fund taps its extensive network of investors in the category to help portfolio companies raise follow-on rounds with value-add partners. It utilizes its connections with leading food companies around the globe to help portfolio companies secure product development, scale-up and sales partnerships. It draws on years of experience investing across scores of companies in the Food and AgTech sectors (and reviewing thousands more) to advise on commercial and marketing strategies. Lever VC prefers to lead or co-lead rounds and to take board or board observer seats when possible, although neither is required.

RPV is the $100 million corporate venture fund for Rich Products, a $4.5B family-owned food company that operates in 100+ countries and sells across a range of channels from food service to retail. Our fund invests in companies across the value chain that will shape the future of food through technology and innovation. We have investments across three core areas (1) Nutrition and Sustainability (2) Next Generation of Retail and Food Service and (3) Digitization of the supply chain. Our portfolio includes market leading companies like Future Meat (cell-based meat), The Every Company (animal-free egg proteins), Strella (food-waste reduction) and Kitchen United (ghost kitchens). We measure success on financial returns while we also seek to bring strategic insights to the broader organization. RPV is in its 5th year and we continue to be very active targeting 4-5 investment per year.

Established by founder and former CEO of Vital Proteins and backed by a team of highly successful consumer brand entrepreneurs and investors, Starshot Ventures Launch Pad – SVLP – is a venture creation studio that forges innovative brands meant to deliver on consumers’ wellness needs. We are seasoned leaders and well-respected brand builders on a mission to provide better wellness solutions for all. We lead with curiosity and chase bold ideas in the pursuit of helping others be their best.

We back regenerative technology companies that are restoring the planet from the atom up. Why regenerative? Because investment should be an act of optimism. We can’t incrementally fix what is fundamentally broken. Sustainability is not enough. The next generation of iconic companies will work with nature rather than against it. Driven by a convergence of technology, demand and talent, the only limit is our collective imagination. Together, we will create a better way of living for all without destroying the planet we depend on. 25% of greenhouse gas emissions caused by the food and agriculture industry. We can transform this carbon culprit to a carbon sink. $>3T per year of materials and products will be redesigned from synthetic to bio-based to meet our net-zero targets. 45% of carbon emissions need to be cut this decade and 100% by 2050. The entire economy must be radically reinvented. Our Investment Areas Food & Agriculture Nature-inspired technologies enable a healthier food system that meets the needs of all while healing the planet. Regenerative food systems can mitigate 25% of global emissions as well as being a carbon sink for other industries. The co-benefits of increased biodiversity, reduced water consumption and improved food quality, make this a truly win-win-win area of focus. Alternative Food Production, Soil Health, Supply Chain, Robotics and Automation, Microbiome Materials & Products From synthetic chemicals and fossil-fuels to living and bio-based. Ubiquitous materials such as textiles, building materials and packaging that make up our physical world are being reimagined thanks to step-changes in technology. Materials of the future will work for the planet rather than against it and be more beautiful, cheaper and infinitely scalable. Regenerative Fibres, Textiles, Dyes, Feedstock, Plastics, Building Materials, Enabling Infrastructure Decarbonisation Reinventing every sector of the economy is an urgent imperative and generational opportunity. We acknowledge that not every sector will reach net-zero in our lifetime. While reducing emissions towards zero as fast as possible we will simultaneously accelerate our progress by harnessing nature-based solutions to remove carbon faster, cheaper and more permanently. Mother Earth has been doing this for 4 billion years! Nature-based carbon removal, Biodiversity, Enabling technologies, Marketplaces, Carbon-to-value, Next-Gen Infrastructure

Pioneers in deploying venture capital into high impact agrifood tech since 2014, we back ambitious teams that are reconnecting and strengthening the link between human health and the health of the planet through innovative technology. Clay Capital was founded with the belief that food is both the cause of, and remedy to, some of today’s most urgent challenges: environmental degradation, societal inequity, and human health. We see these issues as interconnected.In Europe and Asia especially, there is a generation of entrepreneurs motivated to tackle the $12 trillion market opportunity that lies in restoring and reconnecting human and planetary health - and who have a toolkit fit for purpose: from farmers and chefs, to biotechnologists, computational biologistics, plant scientists, computer engineers and multidisciplinary teams merging these skillsets. There is no single silver bullet; transforming a system that has supported humanity in its evolution from Nomadic to Agrarian, and been the seed that rooted and grew societies around the globe, will not happen overnight. Therefore, there’s an urgent need for both transitional solutions and revolutionary new infrastructure. We aim to back both, and enable a healthier food system to co-exist with a healthier planet within our lifetimes. Clay Capital invests to strengthen and refocus how materials are produced and consumed through innovation to have sustainable, nutritious, and circular outcomes. This context presents us with unrivalled opportunities for smart investing - investments that address urgent issues today, for a better tomorrow.