What a year. It would be an understatement to say it’s been tough for most but for agrifoodtech, it was a blow-out year. Startups raised $26.1 billion in 2020, a 15.5% year-over-year increase, which we expect to increase to more than $30 billion as new 2020 deals come to light. This would represent 34.5% growth over 2019.

Much of the increase was down to significant growth and late-stage deals, where we saw investors doubling down on their existing portfolio and the first-wave of agrifoodtech innovations. Impossible Foods’ $500m and $200m rounds are a case in point. But positively, we also saw early-stage deals get bigger as the second wave of agrifoodtech innovators enjoy increasing sector recognition by a widening spectrum of venture capital investors.

Upstream investment surpassed downstream investment for the first time on record bringing in $15.8bn as investors became more comfortable with food production and the supply chain.