Dinner on Innovation & Investment in Food and Agriculture
Join the Stanford Sustainability Accelerator and Ponderosa Ventures on Monday, September 22nd for an intimate dinner to discuss innovation and investment capital in food and agriculture.
Food systems are at a unique moment, with climate events driving deep disruption across crops and livestock. Spread of disease, frosts and heatwaves, drought, and others are harming crop production, while global consumer demand grows. Fortunately, advances in digitization and synthetic biology, lower cost robotics and automation, and accelerated biological R&D cycles can make crop production more resilient. Is the commercial need finally strong enough and the tech finally good enough?
We look forward to an open, forward-looking conversation about the current state of food and agriculture and what industry voices are focusing on as we head into the coming year.
The dinner will bring together leaders from a range of stakeholders, including accelerators, early-stage venture, growth-stage venture, debt capital, corporates, and operators.
Details:
When: September 22nd from: 7-10pm
Where: Flatiron (exact location upon approval)
Spots are extremely limited, so we are sincerely sorry that we will not be able to approve all registrations. We will be reviewing RSVPs on a rolling basis and saving a few spots for even those who register late. (Cut off will be September 12th)
If you are approved, please be sure that you can make it or cancel your RSVP by September 12th. We want to avoid wasting food and make the most of the select few spots.
About the hosts:
Stanford Sustainability Accelerator offers a new model for translating deep technology into rapidly scalable startups. Stanford-led teams are funded with equity-free financing of $150k-$1m. To date, 16 food and agriculture projects have been launched with another 15+ in the pipeline for 2026.
Ponderosa Ventures is a pre-seed and seed fund investing in companies that transform the food, agriculture and oceans sectors. Ponderosa sits within the Galvanize Climate Solutions ecosystem of funds. Ponderosa invests $250k-$750k, investing globally with a focus in the US and Europe. To date, Ponderosa has invested in ~50 companies across a wide range of technologies, including agricultural inputs, robotics, CDR/MRV solutions, coastal resiliency infrastructure, biotech, and software.