With the commitment to transition to a net zero food sector by 2040, research and development is critical to creating productive, efficient and sustainable systems to meet the food requirements of our growing populations, and to ensure a long-term solution that reduces the environmental impact of agriculture.

The £90 million Transforming Food Production (TFP) challenge, led by Innovate UK, has funded a range of industry-led collaborative research and development projects across traditional farming systems to help tackle this challenge. But, while this collaborative research and development is a great way to drive forward new solutions to problems the sector is facing, SMEs then need to be able to grow and scale-up their operations to take new technologies to market, which is often reliant on raising private capital.

As part of their efforts to support this next stage, TFP's Sustainable Food Production Investment Showcase, hosted earlier this month, brought together SMEs and investors with a shared interest in AgriFood-Tech and showcased the ongoing work and results of TFP's Series A Investor Partnership competition.

Speaking about their role in continued support for innovators, Dr Tom Jenkins, Deputy Director for the TFP challenge, commented: "'Our TFP Series A Investor Partnership competitions, where we aligned non-dilutive TFP grant funding with private investment has catalysed new deals across the UK AgriFood-Tech sector, making UK SME substantially more competitive at capturing investment deals of between £1-3 million.

"With two competition rounds now complete, 11 pioneering SMEs have already been funded and they're all developing exciting innovations across both traditional agriculture and emerging industry sectors. We hope to see more game-changing companies and investors joining them in the near future."

The Investment Showcase event featured a case study panel where three companies that secured funding through the TFP Series A Investor Partnership competition shared their success stories about how this scheme has enabled them to take their business to the next stage of growth.

Speaking on the panel, Artun Sukan, a previous investment winner from Higher Steaks, an SME focusing on producing cultivated meat, told the audience of innovators: "Cell culture projects are incredibly research and development heavy - there is a lot of expenditure involved. Having the Innovate UK grant to support the bulk of our R&D helped us move the concept forward and build a business case that really attracted investors to the company."

Another panellist, Chris Davies, of vertical farming innovator Harvest Farms, added: "There's good news and bad news in the vertical farming space right now, as the limited capital available to many businesses creates a real challenge to the scalability of new technology. Receiving the Innovate UK grant and being part of the Investor Partnership scheme has allowed us to upscale our work, build new and strong relationships, and develop our business strategy with the support of our investors to ensure growth all round."

The afternoon session of the event then gave 14 SMEs the chance to pitch their companies to key industry investors. This opportunity was the culmination of an Investor Readiness Training Bootcamp, delivered through TFP challenge funding, which helped founders and CEOs learn how to better sell their businesses to secure investment. On the day, pitches put forward included: 

• Muddy Machines – who presented their electrically-powered field robot to help fix labour shortages for those growing produce.
• Lambda – who showcased their sunlight-optimising material that can help increase plant yield by 20%.
• Aparon – whose innovative products are able to effectively destroy bacterial pathogens in livestock without the use of antibiotics.

Speaking about the SME pitching session, Tobin Wiersum, an investor from Rabobank, said: "The event is a great platform for us to connect with fellow food and agricultural investors, and learn about new companies and technologies in our space. Both the quality and content of the pitches I heard during the day were very good, particularly given the early stage which most of the companies are at."

As the TFP programme reaches its conclusion, there are continued Investor Partnership initiatives being developed by Innovate UK, with the next round of AgriFood-Tech funding opening on the 8^th May, focusing on Novel Low Emission Food Production Systems.

Looking back on the success of this latest event, Chris Danks, Innovation lead delivering the next round of Agri-food tech funding at Innovate UK added: "It's been wonderful to see so many get involved with the event, including more than 40 industry-relevant investors. Many of these investors have been involved in our Investor Partnership programme already, but, importantly, many others here were new to the sector and Innovate UK activities.

"We have continued to support the growing AgriFood-Tech investment ecosystem with investor showcase events since 2017. They are a fantastic platform to connect businesses with relevant sector investors, and to show how Innovate UK can support aligned public and private investment opportunities."

Investors who are considering joining the growing pool of 54 selected investors can find more information on the program here. For SMEs looking to apply for the next round of funding, applications can be submitted here.