Visit our quarterly presenting sponsor: www.CalgaryAgBusiness.com
Builders VC: https://www.builders.vc
FoA 169: Investing in Farmland with Carter Malloy of AcreTrader https://player.captivate.fm/episode/2d02dd15-9faa-469b-8b5d-5b99233a3a53
FoA 188: Fintech Meets Agtech to Invest in Farmland https://player.captivate.fm/episode/44a98802-07c3-4295-87c0-e0965881e5b2
Joining us on today’s episode is Mark Blackwell of Builders VC. Mark is actually based in Calgary, but Builders is a Silicon Valley - based venture fund that focuses on modernizing antiquated industries. So they focus in not only agriculture, but also healthcare, industrials, real estate and construction. They have a portfolio of over 60 companies, investing from seed to series a. The team has a long history of investing in agtech before they founded Builders when they invested as part of Kosla Ventures in companies such as Granular and the Climate Corp.
Mark and I talk a lot about the current state of venture capital, and what areas of agtech he’s most excited to invest in companies with bold visions and strategic plans. I’ll warn you, this episode gets a little into the weeds of venture capital. I’m by no means any sort of an expert on this, but if you’re unfamiliar, here’s a quick and very basic primer:
Venture capitalists start and manage funds to invest in startup companies. They are backed by investors, called limited partners or LPs that give them money to place these bets. When VCs have money from their investors that they have not yet deployed to startups, they call that money dry powder. VCs do take a management fee from those investments, but the real money is made when a company exits. In other words it is sold or goes public. That is why we’ll talk about M&A activity which is mergers and acquisitions. When companies in their portfolio exits, that is when the VC can return the fund, or provide returns to their investors and themselves. We also reference SPACs at one point in this conversation, which could be a whole other podcast, but just know that stands for special purpose acquisition company and it is a vehicle that allows companies to go public that was super popular a year ago, but has fallen out of favor based on a number of factors I won’t get into here.
Ok hopefully that provides good context for this insightful conversation with Mark Blackwell. Mark is a general partner and lead of the Canadian Office at Builders. Previously, he was a product manager at SolarWinds which he joined when they acquired GNS3 Technologies where Mark had been the COO. He also had a background in venture capital and investment banking before that.
FoA 413: Practical Farm Innovation With Brad Fruth of Beck's Hybrids
FoA 412: 'Biological' Is Not A Category (it's the future of agriculture)
FoA 411: Making Technology Your Unfair Advantage with Lawrence King of Headstorm
FoA 410: The Farm to Fashion Supply Chain With Paul Ensor of Hemprino
FoA 409: Is Agtech Entering A GenAI Era? Conversations From World Agri-Tech
[Field Report] Paul Sullivan of P.T. Sullivan Agro on SWAT MAPS
FoA 408: The Future of Precision Agriculture With Dr. Steve Shirtliffe and Dr. Preston Sorenson
FoA 407: Attracting Top Talent to Solve Agribusiness Problems with Christian Guffy of The Context Network
[Field Report] Corteva Research Associate Brett McArtor on SWAT MAPS
FoA 406: Health Trends Are Agricultural Opportunities...The Story of WonderCow
FoA 405: From Fintech Startup to the Largest Produce Trader in the World With Pablo Borquez Schwarzbeck of ProducePay
FoA 404: Digital Solutions for the Largest Ag Retailer in Latin America With Alex Wimbush
FoA 403: Shrimpin' Ain't Easy with Steve Sutton of TransparentSea
FoA 402: How To Know When An Ag Company Is Ready For Growth With Jim Taylor of Forage Capital Partners
[Field Report] Crop Consultant Tyler Kessler shares his experience with SWAT MAPS
FoA 401: Precision Irrigation With Arthur Chen of Verdi
FoA 400: Deeper Roots For Resilience and Carbon Sequestration with Michael Ott of Cquesta
FoA 399: The Changing Farm Economy with David Widmar of Agricultural Economic Insights
FoA 398: The Evolution of Precision Agriculture with Cory Willness and Derek Massey of Croptimistic Technology
FoA 397: Can These Greenhouse Robots Grow The Best Strawberries in the World?
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