Big Idea Ventures has added another five university partners to its Generation Food Rural Partners fund, ranging from Cornell to Washington State.

Big Idea Ventures, a US-based venture capital firm focused on food and agricultural technologies, has revealed an additional five universities that will support its Generation Food Rural Partners (GFPR) fund. Cornell University, Ohio State University, Rutgers University, University of Maryland and Washington State University have all bought into GFPR’s proposition to establish food and agtech spinouts in rural communities near the collaborating universities. GFPR was launched in February 2021 with a $125m target and North Carolina State University as the initial partner. Louisiana State University, Oregon State University, Penn State University, Purdue University, Tufts University, University of Hawai’i, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Worcester Polytechnic Institute all signed up two months later. Tom Mastrobuoni, chief investment officer at Big Idea Ventures, said: “When we designed this investment platform, our goal was to get five universities to collaborate with us. To have secured collaboration commitments from 15 world-class research universities is an incredible vote of confidence and a testament to the power of innovation at the university level.” Frank Klemens, managing director of GFPR, added: “The GFRP Fund will ignite research innovation at our partner universities in agriculture, food and protein sciences which will create new companies located in rural America. “Rural America has always been the centre for innovation in food and agriculture production and this partnership between these world-class universities and GFRP Fund will create the next generational growth in rural America.”

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Thierry Heles

Thierry Heles is the editor of Global University Venturing, host of the Beyond the Breakthrough interview podcast and responsible for the monthly GUV Gazette (sign up here for free).