The GuidePost: March 2024
Trailhead joins FORA and IA 50, Clean Crop and Eion among TIME's Top Greentech Companies for 2024, Trailhead at World Agri-Tech, and more.
It's March, that time of year here in Colorado where the perennials are starting to emerge from the soil and multiple foot snowstorms are still happening. As another year continues its march forward, we at Trailhead would like to take a moment to celebrate two recent wins: our acceptance as a member of Funders of Regenerative Agriculture (FORA), and being named to the ImpactAssets 50 (IA 50) 2024 as an Emerging Impact Manager (EIM)!
FORA is a network of funders and stakeholders that exists to “inform, educate, organize, provide collaborative opportunities, and recruit new members in support of regenerative agricultural systems.” IA 50 consists of a list of private debt and equity impact investing fund managers recognized for their demonstrated potential to create positive impact. The EIM firms that were selected for the IA 50 2024 were chosen to represent newer fund managers to watch that demonstrate potential to create meaningful impact, representing represents firms with unique strategies, under-represented impact themes or diversity in leadership.
For Trailhead, both of these organizations represent opportunities for us to scale our impact. With FORA, we will be able to work more closely with other regenerative agriculture funds, share our knowledge and opportunities with other investors, and invest in new strategic initiatives that have the potential to move the needle for regenerative agriculture adoption broadly. IA 50, likewise, elevates our standing as an impact investing fund manager and will connect us with impact-oriented donors and investors looking for new opportunities in this space.
Also, have you seen TIME’s inaugural list of America’s Top Greentech Companies for 2024? You’ll recognize a couple Trailhead portfolio companies among the honorees.
General Updates
Developing natural crop protection and fertilizer products to help farmers reduce disease and increase yield without harming the environment or human health.
SeedWorld: 60+ AgTech Pioneers to Showcase Breakthrough Innovations at World Agri-Tech in San Francisco
Supporting data-driven, agricultural decision making for lenders, investors, appraisers, agribusinesses and others.
American Farmland Owner: Simplifying ROI
Breakthrough solutions for crop loss and food safety.
Pique Action: Curbing Post-Harvest Food Waste | Clean Crop
Hardware to Save a Planet [Podcast]: Addressing Climate Change in Agriculture with Plasma Technology
Clean Crop Blog: Why we’re scaling Clean Crop in Western Mass
A platform for developing and financing nature-based carbon projects.
Quantum Commodity Intelligence: NGO raises funds to support Africa Green Wall via Earthshot
Removing atmospheric carbon permanently and verifiably, with enhanced rock weathering on soil.
The Carbon Curve [Podcast]: What’s on the Horizon for Eion and Enhanced Rock Weathering
Bloomberg: A Startup Using Crushed Rocks to Capture Carbon Has Delivered Its First Removals
Carbon Herald: Eion Appoints Anastasia Pavlovic As Chief Executive Officer
Better data for better decisions for food buyers at restaurants through to enterprise level customers.
CXO Conversation Podcast: Transforming a Company: From Warehouses to Tech with Food Maven’s CEO Ben Deda
Harnessing forest fungal networks to address the climate crisis.
MCJ Collective: Seeing the Forest for the Fungi: Harnessing Fungal Microbiomes to Accelerate Natural Climate Solutions
The world’s largest product sustainability database.
Food Industry Executive: HowGood Announces New End-to-End Carbon Accounting Solution for Enterprise Food Companies
Green Queen: How This Carbon Calculator is Helping Food Companies Better Report & Reduce GHG Emissions
Supermarket Perimeter: HowGood Debuts ESG Reporting System
HowGood Blog: 2024 US Sustainability Regulations Overview for Food Companies
The recreation access network.
The Shooting Wire: Credova and LandTrust Forge Path for Financing Outdoor Adventures
E-commerce for the local food system.
The Modern Acre [Podcast]: Working on Chipotle’s Local Sourcing Program and What’s Next for Local Line with Cole Jones
Restaurant Business: Chipotle doubles down on Cultivate Next
Financing for regenerative and organic farmers.
Reimagine Money: Credit facility accelerates growth of regenerative farming
A single platform to capture and analyze all food safety and quality data.
Revolutionizing agrifood with AI.
Ingenia Magazine: Engineering swarm robotics
Couchbase: SWARM Engineering Helps Business Users Optimize Supply Chains with Next-Gen Technology
Whole genome sequencing of the soil microbiome.
Future Farming: Trace Genomics raises oversubscribed $ 10.5 million Series B
International Myeloma Foundation: Trace Genomics CEO & Co-Founder Poornima Parameswaran Elected to the International Myeloma Foundation’s Board of Directors
A virtual fencing livestock management system for cattle.
World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit - March 19-20, 2024 - San Francisco
The Trailhead team will be in attendance at the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit for the third year in a row, as will a host of our portfolio companies. The event brings together over 2,500 agtech decision makers for breakout sessions, start-up pitches, investor sessions, networking opportunities, and more. We will be hosting a cocktail party at the Clancy Hotel after the event concludes on Wednesday (3/20). Contact Andrew Keesee for more details.
Regenerative NYC ’24 - April 22, 2024 - New York City
Bringing together farmers, academics, NGOs, founders, bankers, investors, and more to initiate conversations around regenerative agriculture. Trailhead Capital Vice President Nick Schroer will be in attendance and participating in a panel, and many of our partners, advisors and portfolio companies will be on site as well.
Expanding Climate Capital - April 22, 2024 - San Francisco
Part of San Francisco Climate Week, Trailhead’s Mark Lewis will be in attendance at this event focused on expanding the capital stack in climate and exploring opportunities in climate finance.
Climate Week NYC - Sept, 22-29, 2024 - New York City
Trailhead will be in New York City for Climate Week NYC this September and will be hosting our Annual General Meeting and other events in the city that week. More details to follow in the near future.
AgFunderNews: The 2024 list of agrifood corporates making regenerative agriculture commitments
Austin Chronicle: SXSW Panels Explore What’s Next for Sustainable Food
Barron’s: Regenerative Agriculture: An Investable Key to Cutting Carbon Emissions
Civil Eats: These State Lawmakers Are Collaborating on Policies that Support Regenerative Agriculture
Financial Times: Regenerative agriculture sparks venture capital interest
Financial Times: The Dubious Climate Gains of Turning Soil into a Carbon Sink
GreenBiz: 5 years in, how does General Mills’ regenerative agriculture commitment measure up?
National Geographic: Why 'funga' is just as important as flora and fauna
Nature Conservancy: Agriculture Innovation: Investing in agri-tech startups can lead to transformational change
Politico: Europe is spending millions to trap carbon. Where will it go?
Discover opportunities across our network of transformational companies, including:
Mechanical Engineer - Product Development - Clean Crop Technologies. Contribute to the design, fabrication, and testing of critical subsystems driving the success of Clean Crop’s prototype and production equipment builds.
Senior Java Developer - Leaf. Help empower Food and Agriculture Developers by providing them with user-friendly infrastructure for agriculture data and services.
Field Sales and Service Representative - HerdDogg. Create connections that will turn into sales for HerdDogg’s hardware and software solutions for livestock health and welfare management, and traceability.
Snowflake Data Engineer - CamoAg. - Take the lead on engineering projects including design, technical scoping and implementation of data products and features to support CamoAg’s SaaS products serving the agricultural sector.