Food & Agri Investment Summit 2016 – Ascertaining growth drivers for Food, Agri & Consumer businesses
Food processing, food apps services, packaged and fresh food market were cynosure of startup industry, until at least mid of 2015. The startup industry extended same bonhomie to mushrooming food chains and agricultural businesses consisting of but not limited to organic farming, packaging, dairy transferring, weather forecasting, soil analysis and related businesses. Not surprisingly, Investors also believed in business viability of these ideas. Food and agricultural are after all businesses with perpetual demand.
The net result was heavy and, as it later turned out, indiscriminate investment in the Food and Agricultural startups. While some of the investment flew to correct channels, soon the market was under deluge of “me too” inventions, competing for abundant money.
Understandably, the market required a self-correction mode, which came in latter half of 2015. With almost 146 startups receiving investment in tune of $1034 mn in 2015, the deal values even in the second half of 2016 are still to reach half mark compared to what were attained a year earlier. Factors like too many start-ups, too few original ideas, too many free dollies, too much under-pricing and too many bleeding account sheets lead to successfully strip investors off their former confidence and hopes. The investor of 2016 is a cautious, careful and calculating lot.
Industry stakeholders agree that with a vast market such as India, the scope for both entrepreneurial activity and scaling-up is huge.
So what are the factors that will drive growth in food and agri sector and bring the investor optimism back? The situation today requires startups to re-think their business and scale-up strategies before visiting investors. It is also required from VC and PE’s to realign their evaluation processes with different phase of entrepreneurial ventures.
With this purview, News Corp VCCircle is delighted to present the 8th edition of Food & Agri Investment Summit focusing on drivers for the food, agri and consumer business. The summit will feature the leading food entrepreneurs, PE & VC investors, agri experts, consultants and new age food and beverage innovators.
Register here.