Lever VC has held a $50 million first close for its second fund, which focuses on early-stage food and agtech businesses across the world.
The New York-headquartered firm secured commitments to Lever VC Fund II from a variety of family offices, foundations, high-net-worth-individuals, food and agriculture companies and others spread across five continents.
Lever founder and managing partner Nick Cooney told affiliate title Agri Investor he expects his firm will hit its $100 million target for Fund II by the end of 2025. LP commitments to the vehicle so far, he said, have been from a similar makeup of investors as those that committed to its $80 million predecessor. Lever’s first fund closed in mid-2021 after attracting investors split roughly evenly between Europe, Asia and North America.
The more than 100 investments carried out by Cooney and his team over the past 11 years (including previous family office experience) has helped Lever become one of the most active food and agtech investors across the globe, said Cooney. Growth in the firm’s fundraising prospects, he said, reflects growth of the entire category.
“It [capital raised into Fund II] should probably be read as based in part on the strong performance of Lever’s Fund I, of the continued growth of the food and ag category as VC and private equity categories and a recognition of the return potential in those categories,” said Cooney, whose experience before launching Lever in 2018 included co-founding a family office and non-profit organization both focused on plant-based and alternative protein, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Cooney said median commitments to Lever’s second fund have been a bit bigger than for the first and investors in Fund II include at least one sovereign wealth fund and several other entities related to non-US governments he declined to identify. Regionally, he said, the vehicle has also attracted commitments from Middle East, Australia, Latin America and elsewhere.
The increased participation of undisclosed funds-of-funds, he added, has been among the biggest changes to the fundraising effort between Fund I and Fund II.
“For some funds-of-funds, it’s nothing but IRR and diversification.” said Cooney. “For others, there is more thematic interest around things like sustainable food and agtech; very important given the large, somewhat outsized role, food and ag play in global GHG emissions, land use and water use.”
Lever’s first fund included investments in food genetics and other categories that could be considered “agriculture” more than “foodtech,” Cooney said. He added that Fund II’s strategy is broadly similar to that of Lever’s first fund, which focused largely on food and foodtech investments across the sector, with some investments elsewhere in agriculture.
Lever has already completed five investments from Fund II, including Israel-headquartered novel fats producer Gavan; a California-headquartered company called Oobli that offers novel sugar substitutes and meat replacement ingredient maker Mush Foods, which is headquartered in Chicago.
Alternative proteins were part of Fund I, Cooney said, and will continue to be an important part of the strategy, despite recent challenges in some corners of the plant-based meat market.
“There is a good number of companies in these categories that are doing well, that have gotten to breakeven or profitability, that are still growing,” he said. “Certainly, some investors made some bad bets in the category, particularly investors that didn’t know that space very well, but there is absolutely opportunity there.”
One of the factors that has helped bring investors to Lever Fund II, according to Cooney, is the strong exit environment across a food and ag sector that been second only to real estate when measured by acquisitions over the past 10 years.
“Many of the largest food companies, their primary way of growing over the past ten to 15 years, has been acquire and scale things that are working, as opposed to developing either technological innovation or real brand innovation in-house,” he explained. “So, food, foodtech; very great acquisition environment, thus good exit environment more generally.”
Lever VC has held a $50 million first close for its second fund, which focuses on early-stage food and agtech businesses across the world.
The New York-headquartered firm secured commitments to Lever VC Fund II from a variety of family offices, foundations, high-net-worth-individuals, food and agriculture companies and others spread across five continents.
Lever founder and managing partner Nick Cooney told affiliate title Agri Investor he expects his firm will hit its $100 million target for Fund II by the end of 2025. LP commitments to the vehicle so far, he said, have been from a similar makeup of investors as those that committed to its $80 million predecessor. Lever’s first fund closed in mid-2021 after attracting investors split roughly evenly between Europe, Asia and North America.
The more than 100 investments carried out by Cooney and his team over the past 11 years (including previous family office experience) has helped Lever become one of the most active food and agtech investors across the globe, said Cooney. Growth in the firm’s fundraising prospects, he said, reflects growth of the entire category.
“It [capital raised into Fund II] should probably be read as based in part on the strong performance of Lever’s Fund I, of the continued growth of the food and ag category as VC and private equity categories and a recognition of the return potential in those categories,” said Cooney, whose experience before launching Lever in 2018 included co-founding a family office and non-profit organization both focused on plant-based and alternative protein, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Cooney said median commitments to Lever’s second fund have been a bit bigger than for the first and investors in Fund II include at least one sovereign wealth fund and several other entities related to non-US governments he declined to identify. Regionally, he said, the vehicle has also attracted commitments from Middle East, Australia, Latin America and elsewhere.
The increased participation of undisclosed funds-of-funds, he added, has been among the biggest changes to the fundraising effort between Fund I and Fund II.
“For some funds-of-funds, it’s nothing but IRR and diversification.” said Cooney. “For others, there is more thematic interest around things like sustainable food and agtech; very important given the large, somewhat outsized role, food and ag play in global GHG emissions, land use and water use.”
Lever’s first fund included investments in food genetics and other categories that could be considered “agriculture” more than “foodtech,” Cooney said. He added that Fund II’s strategy is broadly similar to that of Lever’s first fund, which focused largely on food and foodtech investments across the sector, with some investments elsewhere in agriculture.
Lever has already completed five investments from Fund II, including Israel-headquartered novel fats producer Gavan; a California-headquartered company called Oobli that offers novel sugar substitutes and meat replacement ingredient maker Mush Foods, which is headquartered in Chicago.
Alternative proteins were part of Fund I, Cooney said, and will continue to be an important part of the strategy, despite recent challenges in some corners of the plant-based meat market.
“There is a good number of companies in these categories that are doing well, that have gotten to breakeven or profitability, that are still growing,” he said. “Certainly, some investors made some bad bets in the category, particularly investors that didn’t know that space very well, but there is absolutely opportunity there.”
One of the factors that has helped bring investors to Lever Fund II, according to Cooney, is the strong exit environment across a food and ag sector that been second only to real estate when measured by acquisitions over the past 10 years.
“Many of the largest food companies, their primary way of growing over the past ten to 15 years, has been acquire and scale things that are working, as opposed to developing either technological innovation or real brand innovation in-house,” he explained. “So, food, foodtech; very great acquisition environment, thus good exit environment more generally.”
