Rosie Wardle, Co-Founder of Synthesis Capital, sits down to talk about her experience in investing in projects that change the world and why we need to re-think our food system…
If you’re searching for a career that involves investing in projects that change the world, then look no further than Rosie Wardle for inspiration. Rosie is an alternative protein trailblazer and Co-Founder of Synthesis Capital – a VC firm investing in food technologies. We are talking about the future of what we eat, no less – from 3D printed steaks, to lab-grown meat and better plant protein crops.
What makes steak so enticing to carnivores? The flavour, tenderness, texture, saltiness? Now take the cow away from the production chain entirely, and replace it with plant-based ingredients, a bit of AI, Machine Learning, advanced manufacturing, and 3D printing. Could it ever taste the same as (or even better) than an ‘authentic’ ribeye or sirloin? The answer is, according to those at the frontline of ‘future food’, a resounding yes.
And this is exactly the kind of deep tech investor Rosie Wardle, Co-Founder of venture capital firm Synthesis Capital, is channelling her energy – and funds – into right now.
One company we’ve invested in is Redefine Meat,” explains Rosie. “Marco Pierre White has introduced some of the products at his restaurants. They’ve taken the concept of 3D printing as a way of structuring whole pieces of meat – focusing on plant-based whole cuts, such as a steak. You could never produce these with existing technologies like ‘extrusion’ because they’re not able to recreate the complexity of something like a steak or a lamb chop. This kind of food production will be scalable and relatively low cost to roll out.
Redefine Meats is taking the concept of 3D printing as a way of structuring whole pieces of meat – focusing on plant-based whole cuts, like a steak.
Rosie has had a lifelong interest in food systems and sustainability. Having grown up in a rural Yorkshire community, the palpable horrors of the Foot and Mouth disease in 2001 clearly live on in her mind – no doubt fuelling her desire to be vegetarian, then vegan. Professionally, she has a restless desire to speed up change.
Livestock production is at the centre of many of the major global challenges that we face – think climate change, pandemics, food security, antibiotic resistance, and resource scarcity. Globally, the vast majority of antibiotics are used on farm animals, for instance. Now, we’re seeing grain supply challenges with the crisis in Ukraine. The current food system is built on long, very opaque supply chains. If you’re taking soy from South America, feeding it to pigs in Europe and then shipping the meat to China for people to eat, it’s clear we need a re-think. And we need to invest in alternative protein technologies to disrupt this destructive system. There’s strong consumer interest in these technologies. Studies into cultivated meat (grown directly from cells) across the US, Europe, China, and India are all very positive; people want to try these products.
If you’re taking soy from South America, feeding it to pigs in Europe and then shipping the meat to China for people to eat, it’s clear we need a re-think.
While investing in future food tech seems to fit Rosie’s passion, ambition, and drive like a glove, at degree level, she didn’t seem to be ‘typically’ heading for a career in venture capital. She holds a BA and MA in Modern Languages and Linguistics from Oxford and an MA from the Courtauld Institute. A firm advocate of diversity of thought, Rosie believes her academic background and creative mind stand her in good stead when looking at start-ups, communicating with founders and thinking about the market landscape.
In fact, Rosie had barely bid farewell to life as a student, when she had her first foray into this then brave new world – working with private equity investor, Jeremy Coller of Coller Capital in 2013. There she launched FAIRR (Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return) – an investor network that’s now supported by more than $60trillion of combined institutional investor assets. Through FAIRR she worked with the key stakeholders across the food sector – from the biggest investors to largest corporates across the value chain, to formulate their ESG strategies.
FAIRR was the first strategic programme that we built with a mandate of ‘how do we engage capital markets on these food systems issues?’ This industry – recreating meat from plants or growing real meat without an animal – was in its nascency then. There was only a handful of companies – five or six – that were doing it. And the idea to many people seemed quite left field; the space was so young. I came at it from an ESG perspective. It didn’t make sense to me that investors weren’t making the connection between climate risk and their food portfolios. It was considered a fringe issue back then; the ESG lens of climate risk was solely focused on the energy sector.
It didn’t make sense to me that investors weren’t making the connection between climate risk and their food portfolios.
Now with a membership representing over $66 trillion in assets under management, it’s clear much has changed since then. But Rosie is the first to emphasise that much still needs to be done. As an early investor in Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat (as CPT Capital), she believes it’s no longer about the ‘saturated’ market of end consumer branding. The future game changer will be technology.
A lot of the products out there, in our view, are still not good enough to convince a mainstream consumer. And that’s a carnivore who loves meat. You don’t need to appeal to a vegetarian or vegan audience. That’s why we invest upstream; enabling technologies that we think ultimately will create better products downstream. Technologies are being developed so that soy, pea, chickpea, mung bean, all these types of crops, can yield higher protein and lower starch. They’re much healthier to eat and more sustainable to produce.
A lot of the products out there, in our view, are still not good enough to convince a mainstream consumer.
Luckily Rosie and the Synthesis Capital team have ‘dry powder’ to play with to tackle this pressing issue head on – to the tune of a $300million fund, the largest first-time fund raised in Europe this year. And there’s not a moment to lose. In Rosie’s own words: “Without these new technologies and more innovation upstream, we’re in real trouble.”
