Finistere Raises $150M for New Fund Focused on Agricultural Biotech

Crops Agriculture Abstract Landscape (Credit-Depositphotos_rechitansorin)

Finistere Ventures, a San Diego investment firm focused on agricultural biotechnology, said it has closed on $150 million for its second fund.

In a regulatory filing, the firm indicates plans to raise as much as $200 million for the fund, Finistere Ventures II. In a separate filing, Finistere disclosed plans to raise $20 million for a related feeder fund.

Amid challenges that include decreasing agricultural land resources, climate change, and changing population demographics, Finistere said it is collaborating with Bayer CropScience, Calgary-based AVAC, and other global partners to invest in new technology solutions in food productivity, sustainability, and nutrition.

In addition to its San Diego headquarters, where the firm began investing in 2005, Finistere also has added an office in Palo Alto, CA, headed by former Venrock vice president Spencer Maughan.

“Silicon Valley has become a major hub for new agtech companies, and a more diverse group of investors,” Maughan says in the statement from Finistere. “With California as the leading agricultural state by value and the biggest concentration of venture investing in the world, the prospects for investment in Agtech are ideal.”

The firm says its investments will be focused primarily in North America, but it is also working with partners in Australia, New Zealand, and Israel.

In a statement, Finistere chairman Jerry Caulder, says, “The timing for a new fund coincides with the new wave of innovation needed to create the next Green Revolution in agriculture. By partnering with the expanding VC interest, we can build on the positive results we’ve had in this sector.”

In its first fund, Finistere invested in both agricultural biotechnology and healthcare startups, including San Diego-based ZeaKal and SG Biofuels; Campbell, CA-based Sadra Medical; Menlo Park, CA-based Transcend Medical; and Morrisville, NC-based nContact Surgical.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.