Impact investor Astanor Ventures has announced the addition of David Barber and Emmanuel Faber to its partnership team.
Barber and Faber, two internationally recognised leaders in the movement towards a sustainable agrifood system, join Astanor with a mission to align capital with nature and secure a sustainable future of food for all.
Astanor Ventures
The global agrifood system is a major catalyst of climate, biodiversity, social, and health crises across the globe.
Astanor is a new model of impact investing, that is data-driven, transparent, and scales return and impact to transform the economy from a system of extraction to one of regeneration.
Since its creation in 2017, Astanor has invested in 29 agrifood tech companies across the globe, backing solutions which promise to generate a significant, material positive impact in the agrifood system.
Some of its investments include include French insect farming company, Ynsect; US food waste firm Apeel, German vertical farming start-up, Infarm; US-based biomaterials company, Modern Meadow; and Australian plant-based protein maker, V2food.
In addition to a number of special purpose vehicles, the firm closed a €264 million impact fund in December 2020, setting records for the largest agrifood impact investing fund ever raised.
Eric Archambeau, co-founder and partner at Astanor, said, "Astanor was founded on the principle that impact-driven business is the key to a more resilient, sustainable economy.
"This conviction has been a driving force in both David and Emmanuel's careers for decades, a commitment I have witnessed firsthand throughout our numerous collaborations. Their expertise, leadership and dedication to our common mission make them ideal partners for both Astanor and our investee companies."
David Barber
As founder of New York-based agrifood impact investing firm, Almanac Insights, Barber has dedicated his career to reinventing finance's role in the economy.
He reimagined the purpose of capital as a tool to serve soil health, biodiversity, and ultimately reverse the damage extractive economics have caused the planet.
Founding partner of the Stone Barns Centre for Food and Agriculture and co-owner of Blue Hill, Barber brings with him decades of experience in testing, scaling, and championing regenerative agrifood solutions to define a new future of food, from farmer to consumer.
Speaking on his appointment, Barber said, "Capital's required role in food system transformation has long been underestimated. Astanor has demonstrated the importance of backing visionary entrepreneurs and scaling growth in line with measurable impact creation.
"It is a privilege to join their effort to leverage modern technologies to facilitate a food system that nourishes our nature, our environment and our future."
Emmanuel Faber
Former Danone chairman and CEO, Emmanuel Faber is a powerful advocate of purpose-driven business and a widely recognised leader in global agrifood and economic reform.
A member of the G7 Impact Task Force and the Club of Rome Transformational Economics Commission, Faber is on the front lines of the international movement to develop a regenerative system of economics.
As co-chair of the Consumer Goods Forum and founder and chair of the One Planet Business for Biodiversity Coalition, Faber led hundreds of major international business, financial and institutional decision-makers to catalyse global action to embrace the food revolution and restore biodiversity.
Faber stated, "Partnerships of like-minded activists are a recipe for collective intelligence. And this is much needed. Within the incredibly buoyant agtech and foodtech space, where I met and worked with dozens of entrepreneurs and investors over the last two decades, I have picked Astanor as the most entrepreneurial, impact-driven team, with already a fantastic track record of transformational start-ups that they support.
"We are now partnering to unequivocally focus on our single biggest collective opportunity to halve global carbon emissions by 2030 in a just transition: planetary diets for all, relying on a biodiverse, regenerative agriculture. Our strategy for this will be to leverage cutting edge science and technology, not to replace nature, life and humans, but to put them back front and centre of agrifood systems."
© 2021 European Supermarket Magazine. Article by Conor Farrelly. For more A-Brands news, click here. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
