Elmehdi Amid, VC at Techmind: "Agriculture is both an impactful and ever-changing sector."

Who are you?

My name is Elmehdi, I graduated from Sciences Po with a master's degree in strategy and finance and before joining Techmind, I spent many years as a consultant in Africa and the Middle East in traditional sectors such as automotive, insurance, industry... I had the chance to join the VC world by joining Techmind two years ago.

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What are the particularities of agriculture and why is it interesting to invest in it?

Agriculture is both a source of impact and a sector in constant evolution, which favors the emergence of new champions. Consumer demand has changed significantly in recent years: people want to eat healthily, responsibly and protect the planet. At Techmind, we have studied each link in the food value chain, and for each of them, we have identified innovations and technologies that are changing the way things are done by addressing three issues: 1) feeding the planet by optimizing agricultural yields, 2) optimizing the way the planet is fed by limiting food waste, for example, and 3) reducing the environmental footprint of agriculture and food. Innovations addressing these issues can be found everywhere in this chain, whether in the fields with carbon storage methods, in industry with eco-responsible packaging, or in logistics companies with tools for optimizing agricultural logistics...

What are the financing issues in Agritech? What are the expected returns on investment compared to other sectors?

The questions we should ask ourselves are: "Do our investments allow us to contribute to this agricultural transition and thus benefit the common good?" and "Will it have more impact to invest in yet another work productivity tool or rather in a startup that revolutionizes the way we eat? "For many investors, the answer is obvious because they are aware of the challenge represented by the agricultural transition: if we want to have a positive impact on the world, it is better to support an agritech player in my opinion. Thus, in recent years, we have seen several funds emerge and play the game to invest in impact, and surprisingly, agrifoodtech is one of the most important verticals in their investment thesis and the most represented in their portfolio because it has this famous deposit of impact.

Now, if you want to invest in agrifoodtech, a fund hopes to find good quality projects because their LPs have both impact and profitability expectations: you can only invest in projects with a good impact value proposition, with strong growth potential and led by solid teams. The more quality projects there are, the more agrifoodtech will be able to attract private capital.

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How do you measure the impact at Techmind?

Today, we do this automatically and instinctively: when we approach an issue, we look at its impact on the planet as well as on all food stakeholders: farmers and consumers in particular. For example, if an agrifoodtech project does not pollute but does not bring any positive ecological, economic or health benefits, it will not necessarily be in our thesis. For the current year, we are focusing on the research of startup projects to fight against food waste, to reduce the carbon footprint of agricultural activity, to valorize agricultural and food waste and to optimize logistics and agricultural work.

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How do you support entrepreneurs in Agritech?

We are fortunate to form our agrifoodtech investment vertical "Jeriko" in partnership with Carem Impulse, a family office founded by a couple of agricultural entrepreneurs (Emmanuel and Cariad) who have worked for 30 years in salad growing. This partnership allows us to be relevant both strategically and financially as well as operationally in our support proposal to Agrifoodtech entrepreneurs. We have identified several areas where we can bring value to the startups in our portfolio: the first is to support them in their overall strategy. The second is the go-to-market issue, thanks to our approach which advocates the involvement of investors directly in the startup's project. We provide a well-stocked address book to trigger commercial discussions, facilitate the progress of commercial processes, or provide entrepreneurs with advice on their products from a technical point of view.

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We also provide operational support with Carem Impulse, which allows our startups to benefit from the portfolio of over 30 years of agricultural experience in France, Spain and Tunisia. They bring advice on the product without forgetting their address book which they put at the disposal of the startups.

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Last point: the financial support. An investor sees a lot of files and understands better than anyone else the elements to put forward to trigger a favorable investment decision. We understand investors' expectations, and provide advice on how to improve the storyline of the pitch deck, build a business plan, reinforce the discourse around the value proposition and the place of the solution on the market...

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Which themes are sought after by corporates?

It's hard to say, because it depends on the startup, what it brings and how it brings it. Corporations need startups that understand their challenges, adapt to their processes and way of working, offer a simple technology to implement in plug and play mode, which is very difficult to do for a startup. Very few agrifoodtech startups have managed to crack the corporate segment. The question is: How do we get these two worlds to communicate and cooperate to achieve the impact and efficiency goals that they so desperately seek? This is a task that is facilitated today by gas pedals such as Hectar but also by investors who can be a real channel of communication and cooperation pushing startups to develop solutions increasingly adapted to the realities of the corporate world and corporates to open up and contribute to the development of these new solutions.

On our side, we are seduced by the potential of AI solutions to reduce food waste, but also by satellite imagery and the scalability it brings to various operations in the agricultural chain. I can cite topics such as the use of IoT to reduce the doses of pesticides applied to crops. For us, these are topics that could bring a lot of value to many corporations.

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Any recommendations for entrepreneurs getting into agritech?

When you are passionate, you have less distance: this is a point that comes up with many entrepreneurs and that you have to be careful about. We can try to do everything, whereas experience shows that we have to make a big effort during the creation of the startup and up to the product tests, but from the moment we raise the funds we have to know how to surround ourselves with a team and build it. Knowing how to delegate is a very difficult skill to acquire, especially when you are working on your own project. Entrepreneurs who are lucid and pragmatic about their ability to develop their startup always try to surround themselves with good people, they have an incredible ability to listen and cooperate, it is these elements of entrepreneurial maturity that often make the difference between a startup that will not go beyond the seed stage and one that has the potential to become a scale-up by going through the series A, series B, series C...

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In entrepreneurship, we always ask the entrepreneur to be a kind of hybrid creature, very passionate and very pragmatic at the same time, which is extremely difficult in reality, and it requires a lot of self-awareness and a very high mental and intellectual flexibility. Another easier way to have this hybridization is to look at startups founded by teams of 2 or 3 people, where the managers are complementary in terms of skills and personality, which allows to bring passion, rationality and stability at the same time. Getting co-founders to complement each other and share your adventure with them is not always easy, but if it ensures the survival and success of the company, it is well worth it!

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Why get closer to Hectar ?

We approached Hectar for several reasons: firstly for its positioning at the center of an ecosystem with its ability to communicate and federate several players at the same time: corporates, investors, funds.... The fact that you can reconcile the interests of each stakeholder and create an ecosystem conducive to the creation of startups with strong development potential is really a key positioning, difficult to occupy but which Hectar has mastered well.

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The second point is the rapid development of Hectar. You have quickly taken an important place in the agritech ecosystem, where you can bring a lot of value. You've only been around for a short time and the results are already there: the ecosystem, the new initiatives, the quality of the startups selected, the quality of the acceleration. We can see the impact and benefits you can bring to startups through your coaching and support work, which makes them much more relevant to us investors. If you compare them with non-accelerated startups, you can really see the difference in terms of maturity and impact.

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The quality of an accelerator program is also seen in the quality of its startups, and in the journey they have taken during the months of incubation and acceleration. We can clearly see your effort, today we automatically meet all the startups that go through Hectar, without exception. For us, you are a major sourcing player, who can recommend startups that we did not have visibility on.

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There are also startups that we invest in very early on before their acceleration at Hectar, in pre-seed or even before, and that we push to join Hectar'saccelerator , because we are aware of the value you bring them.

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How is the collaboration done?

Once a month we meet with Sarah to talk about the latest investment trends and the sector, new startups, what we have seen each on our side ... This also serves to have an expert opinion when we know little about a topic, not necessarily on a startup but on a technology, its constraints, its market ... And the reverse is also true, we can be a source of advice on a file, its impact, the preparation of startups ... It is an opportunity to discuss all this, and participate in the training of the team. And the opposite is also true, we can be a force of advice on a file, its impact, the preparation of startups ... It is an opportunity to discuss all this, and to participate in the formation of the ecosystem Hectar at our scale.

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