Venture fund is focused on healthy food, sustainable agriculture

Seed 2 Growth Ventures (S2G Ventures) was launched on Friday by a group of investors and entrepreneurs with the goal of catalyzing innovation to meet growing consumer demands for healthy sustainable and local food.

S2G Ventures is thought to be the largest venture fund in the United States with $125 million in deployable capital and operating funds. It already has a large portfolio of companies with whom they have made initial investments, including Beyond Meat,  Maple Hill Creamery, Mercais, Midwestern BioAg, MycoTechology, Shenandoah Growers, ShopWell, and Sweetgreen.

Victor Friedberg, S2G Ventures co-founder and managing director, presented S2G Ventures’ mission and goal to a group of executives at the New York Times Food for Tomorrow Conference.

“We’re seeing tectonic shifts in the food industry that consumers are driving. People want better tasting, more nutritious, healthy and sustainable food. The problem is our existing food system is designed to produce cheap calories, and it is not designed to supply healthy, sustainable and affordable nutrition at scale,” Friedberg said. “This provides a great opportunity for innovators and investors, and S2G is seizing the opportunity.”

Chuck Templeton, founder and former CEO of OpenTable, and Sanjeev Krishnan, a career investor join Friedberg as the leading investment decisions team at S2G Ventures.

“We are focused on helping entrepreneurs build businesses that meet the needs of a changing consumer,” Templeton said. “By following a systems-investing approach with other mission-aligned co-investors and food industry stakeholders, we and our portfolio companies can help make healthy food more accessible and environmentally friendly.”