Canada-based investment fund InvestEco has announced its third fund, with CAD100m (US$73.9m) lined up to back companies in North America “that promote health and sustainability in the food sector”.
InvestEco, which has invested in companies including egg supplier Vital Farms, organic-dairy business Maple Hill Creamery and plant-based desserts firm NadaMoo, said it had attracted new institutional investors including Quebec venture-capital firm Fonds de solidarité FTQ, local asset manager Fondaction and BDC Capital, the investment arm of Canada’s BDC bank.
Go deeper with GlobalData
It is eight years since InvestEco launched its first “sustainable food fund”. It had CAD11.5m in commitments. “It was a small fund, but we managed to find some excellent investments,” InvestEco managing partner Andrew Heintzman said. “We are excited to be able to continue our work of partnering with talented entrepreneurs to help grow their companies, but now on a larger scale.”
Geneviève Morin, Fondaction’s CEO, said the asset manager’s participation in the fund “went without saying”, adding it “shares the same objectives” as InvestEco. “Our goal is to finance and support innovative businesses that promote healthy-eating and make local products even more widely available in our markets and online.”
