Middle East/Africa

The firm is close to fully divesting its 2008-vintage Agri-Vie Fund I, while its $146 million successor vehicle is now close to being fully deployed.

The $750m vehicle follows the same buy-and-build strategy of its $433m predecessor and is likely to attract LPs from Europe and the Middle East as well as North America.

Debt commitment to ETG will allow the agricultural conglomerate to strengthen its food value chains which support more than 550,000 smallholder farmers in Africa alone.

The €100 million impact fund for smallholder farmers is backed by commercial banks and a host of government-backed development finance entities.

Mitsubishi Corporation has selected Trendlines Agrifood to be its local partner as it looks for emerging agricultural technologies and start-ups in Israel.

Fonds Souverain de Djibouti director general Mamadou Mbaye says fisheries, indoor ag and agribusiness processing are among markets that could eventually be well-suited to investments of between $50m and $100m.

The sub-Saharan forestry investor has been steadily divesting its 2010 vehicle and has raised $115m for a successor fund, which reached its final close in April 2020.

Founder Josh Tetrick says becoming a public company ‘makes sense’ for Eat Just as it seeks to change global food value chains and attracts sovereign wealth funds.

Innovative approaches to ag have secured backing from state-linked investors in a region where food security is high on the political agenda, as is local power politics.

The African impact investor fell short of its $300m target but continues to target IRRs ‘in the twenties,’ says managing partner Stuart Bradley.