AgFunder Releases Mid-Year 2016 Agriculture Technology Investment Report
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) August 09, 2016 -- AgFunder, the leading agriculture-focused online investment platform, announced the release of its Mid-Year 2016 AgTech Investment Report. It reported total agtech investment of $1.8 billion for the first half of 2016, a 20% decline from H1-2015 ($2.2bn) and a 27% decline from H2-2015 ($2.4bn). This decline in agtech investment largely mirrored the broader venture capital market, which fell over two consecutive halves: 14% on H1-2015, and 21% on H2-2015, according to KPMG and CB Insights’ Venture Pulse Report.
Agtech deal activity, however, outperformed the broader venture capital markets where the number of global venture-backed deals fell 13% on H1-2015 after a 28% decline in H2-2015. By comparison, agtech investment activity increased in H1-2016 with 307 deals reported. This is a 7% increase on H1-2015 numbers (285) and a 25% increase on H2-2015 (245).
Seed stage investment continued to drive agtech investment activity, representing 52% of deals recorded. The total size of seed stage investments grew with 159 seed stage deals raising $104 million in H1-2016 compared to 260 deals raising $130 million for all of 2015.
Companies in the Food E-Commerce, Biomaterials & Biochemicals, Soil & Crop Technology and Precision Agriculture subsectors drove top line numbers for H1 this year. Compared to last year, Soil & Crop Technology, Farm-2-Consumer, and Biomaterials & Biochemicals had noticeable upticks, while Drones & Robotics ($132m) and Food E-commerce ($556m) fell year-over-year. Food E-Commerce experienced a large pullback in 2016 as several companies announced closings or scale backs.
Over the past five years, investment in the agtech sector has accelerated from approximately $500 million in 2012 to $4.6 billion in 2015. The $1.8 billion recorded in H1-2016 represents a slight pullback from the 2015 numbers but continues the momentum seen in the sector.
Read the report for an in-depth look at the industry, subsectors, and all deal data for the first half of 2016.
Download AgFunder’s Mid-Year 2016 AgTech Investing Report:
https://agfunder.com/research
About AgFunder
AgFunder is the world’s first online investment platform created specifically to connect accredited investors with world-class agriculture and agtech investment opportunities. Every company featured on AgFunder is evaluated for its economic and technical merits by our team of agriculture and business experts, providing potential investors access to some of the most promising agriculture investment opportunities. For more information visit https://agfunder.com.
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Contact: Melissa Tilney, melissa(at)agfunder(dot)com
Melissa Tilney, AgFunder, https://agfunder.com, +1 415-498-0142, [email protected]
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