Hong Kong's Lever VC closes food fund at $80m
Hong Kong-based food tech investor Lever VC has reached a final close of $80 million on its debut fund, which launched in August last year with a target of $50 million.
It follows a fourth close of $46 million in April. At the time, the firm claimed the value of the fund's portfolio had grown 2.3x since 2019. The portfolio currently features 19 early-stage companies globally, with Hong Kong, mainland China, and Singapore all represented.
There is a strong global strategic element to the LP base. Participants include meat and commodities companies, a fermentation specialist, and two agrifeed businesses. Additional commitments came from Asian family offices and high net worth individuals in the US and Europe.
"We're pleased with the strong growth in value, sales, and technology of our current portfolio, and we'll continue to invest in more stellar companies over the next year," Nick Cooney, a managing partner at Lever, said in a statement. "We also look forward to beginning the raise of Lever VC Fund II early next year on the back of large pre-commitments from existing LPs and strong interest from institutional investors."
The fund will be used in part to support follow-on rounds for portfolio companies in Lever's existing China vehicle, which had secured RMB40 million ($6.2 million) as of mid-2020. As such, the China vehicle's planned capacity of RMB200 million is now firmly in place across the two funds.
That strategy will also leverage a partnership with Brinc, a Hong Kong accelerator focused on manufacturing.
Lever tracks more than 2,000 alternative protein companies globally, with a central office in Hong Kong and team members in Singapore, mainland China, the US, UK, France, Israel, Brazil, and India. Prior to launching its flagship fund, Cooney and co-founder Lawrence Chu made family office investments in companies such as Impossible Foods, Beyond, East Just, Memphis Meats, and Aleph Farms.
Lever's portfolio in Asia includes Hong Kong-based Avant, a cultivated meat company targeting Greater China, and Singapore's TurtleTree Labs, which creates milk from cells with no animal needed, and Marvelous Foods, a plant-based dairy brand in China.
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