Xin Ma has been made chief investment officer of Fonterra's CVC arm, where she will oversee the global investment strategy.
Xin Ma, photo courtesy of LinkedIn
New Zealand dairy cooperative Fonterra has appointed Xin Ma as chief investment officer of Ki Tua Fund, its investment unit.
Ma was previously vice president and head of EU VC investments for the fund, a role she began in January. The post of CIO is a newly created position, and Ma will now oversee the global investment strategy targeting startups in sectors including food, agriculture, nutrition and health technology.
Before joining Ki Tua Fund, she was managing director and an investment committee member for Capagro, a Paris-based VC firm that also investes in agriculture and food startups in the EU. Prior to that, she spent more than a decade at the French energy company Total, where she began by working on M&A and new investment projects in 2012, before moving to its corporate venture arm, Total Energy Ventures, in 2017. She rose to the position of managing director for the unit’s Asia platform a year later.
Ki Tua Fund was launched in 2023 and today manages over $100m in assets, with around ten portfolio companies. It invests in food and agtech startups that go beyond the parent company’s core dairy business. In February, Fonterra took part in the $34.1m series A round for the Dutch startup Vivici, which uses precision fermentation technology to make a form of protein to be used to make animal-free dairy.
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