China's Bits x Bites closes second food tech fund at $100m

New investors include Syngenta Group Ventures, Esco Lifesciences, Adisseo, an animal nutrition company, and Cavallo Ventures, the VC arm of Wilbur-Ellis. Additional support came from DisruptAD, a venture platform of Abu Dhabi’s ADQ, and a mix of financial institutions and family offices.

A first close of $30 million was achieved in November last year with LP commitments from the likes of Temasek Holdings and Heritas Capital Management. Noteworthy individual backers include Henry Soesanto, CEO of Philippines-based food giant Monde Nissin, which owns UK vegetarian meat company Quorn.

Bits x Bites, which calls itself China’s only agrifood technology VC, raised an undisclosed sum for its first fund in 2017 from a single unnamed LP. That vehicle has been fully deployed across 14 investments, with check sizes ranging from $1-3 million.

Fund II is expected to make larger investments, including seed to Series B rounds in new companies and follow-on rounds in existing portfolio assets. China remains the core target geography.

There have been seven investments by the new fund to date, four of which are China-based. Among those are Mojia Bio, a biomanufacturer supplying the feed and food industries, and EAVision, an agricultural drone company that raised a $30 million Series C round earlier this year led by Temasek.

International investments from the new fund include Singapore’s Next Gen, the company behind vegetarian chicken brand Tindle, which raised a $20 million round featuring Temasek in July. There have also been investments in two herbicide discovery companies: MoA in the UK and Enko Chem in the US.

“The appeal of agrifood investing for the Chinese market goes beyond its mammoth role in the global supply chain or its vibrant tech activities in AI/ML [artificial intelligence and machine learning] and biotech,” says Matilda Ho, founder and managing director, Bits x Bites.

“What is often overlooked is this tech ecosystem’s relentless drive toward cost-based innovations, building solutions to fuel efficiency and to make sustainable and healthy ingredient options more affordable. We believe there has never been a better time to be investing in agrifood for China, and we couldn’t be more pleased with our LPs’ support for our strategy.”

Bits x Bites screens about 1,200 pre-A to Series B companies annually, roughly half of which are Chinese. To support the local pipeline and portfolio, it has added Liu Shi, an executive vice president at Chinese agricultural conglomerate Dabeinong Technology Group, as a senior advisor.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Fundraising
• Venture
• China
• Temasek Holdings
• Heritas Capital
• Food
• Agriculture
• seed