Rising Amidst Retreat: The Call To True Innovation in AgTech
How to aim for success in spite of uncertainty...
AgTech has gone from “over-promise and under-deliver” to “stay out of the news long enough to exit.”
Everyone is hiding. Everyone is feeling a little nervous. And everyone is trying to do what they can to avoid being the next Indigo - or categorized as such.
Funding for agrifood and forestry funds in H1 2023 is down about 70% for the second straight year.
Valuations are blowing up by as much as 95% (see Indigo comment above).
And I believe that there’s never been a better time to be in agtech.
It was easy when everyone was an optimist.
When everyone believed that technology would revolutionize agricultural production.
When carbon credits, biologicals, farm management systems, and aerial imagery were all inevitable.
But this is the time where future winners are made.
Unfortunately, most people don’t see it that way. Most board meetings in agtech today are incredibly defensive in tone.
“How do we weather these conditions until good times return?”
“How do we get back to where we were in 2021?”
The problem is that when we think this way, we are attempting to predict the future. And as much as we think we can…no one knows what the future will hold.
Not even the incredibly smart people on your board.
What we do know is that we have the power today to take initiative, to get smart about where we are deploying capital, and to be narrowly aggressive where it counts most.
9% of companies come out of a slowdown stronger than they came in.
The question I would ask founders and leaders in #agtech today is what are you doing to be part of that 9% in this slowdown?
It was the investor Howard Marks who once said, “When other investors are unworried, we should be cautious; when investors are panicked, we should turn aggressive.”
Make something different. Make people care. Make fans, not followers.