AGR Partners closes investments in Tru-Test and 3D Corporate

Food and agri equity firm AGR Partners has closed deals to invest in New Zealand-based dairy and livestock tech company Tru-Test and US food supplier 3D Corporate.

The deal, the values of which have not been disclosed, follows on the footsteps of the news that California-based AGR opened a new office in Chicago this month, in order to seek new opportunities in American food and agribusiness companies.

AGR managing partner Ejnar Knudsen described the investment in 3D as “highly strategic to AGR”.

“The connectivity 3D has to an array of agricultural industries including poultry and seafood, as well as non-grain ingredients globally is unique,” he said in a press release.

This summer, 3D bought a majority share in Blue Wave, a molecular-weight fish-peptides producer with factories in Peru, Ecuador, Spain and Morocco.

Tru-Test, which has been making milk-flow meters since the 1960s, said earlier this month that it had created a new “hands-free” EIF panel reader, called the XRP2, which uses Bluetooth and internal memory to record livestock tags and capture animal movements.

The investments reflect AGR’s priority to invest in agri outside farmland. Other investments on their portfolio include the Australian feed and livestock producer Ridley Corporation, Missouri-based SEMO Milling and egg producer Opal Foods.

Knudsen said in a recent teleconference that the firm has provided over $150 million over the last two years to management teams “seeking strategic and flexible equity and sub-debt to support their growth plans,” according to agribusiness newspaper Feedstuffs.

He added that investments usually went to companies in need of between $15 million and $100 million.