San Francisco, CA, June 13, 2015 --(
PR.com)-- Global Ag Investing (GAI) and Larta Institute, two thought leaders in ag investing and innovation, have partnered to combine their organizations’ ag knowledge and networks for a new West Coast ag conference, AgTech Week, June 22-24.
Kicking off the inaugural AgTech Week will be a keynote address and town hall Q&A by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who will speak to the current strengths, innovations and outlook for the agricultural economy.
AgTech Week will provide 2.5 days of networking, engaging presentations, and panels and interactive workshops, all designed to educate and inspire investors and entrepreneurs in the food and agriculture technology sectors worldwide.
Just added to this powerhouse ag event, Larta Institute has invited three early stage ag innovation portfolio companies to pitch to investors in the AgTech Innovation Exposition session from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. on June 24th. The session will be led by Rohit Shukla, CEO of Larta Institute.
The emerging ag companies presenting at AgTech Week:
· Asilomar Bio, an emerging company from San Francisco, creates products that improve crop yield and water efficiency in farming through enhancing water use efficiency, and combating parasitic weeds. Asilomar Bio is a current 2014-2015 USDA portfolio company from Larta’s ag practice working on commercializing their innovation of enhanced drought tolerance in maize using strigolactones. http://www.asilomarbio.com/
Whole Trees, from Madison, Wisconsin, a whole lumber engineering company, worked with Larta to create a sustainable round timber supply chain. They take a previously ignored byproduct of sustainably managed forests and engineer cost-efficient, sustainable building structural systems for commercial and residential use. Whole Trees is a current 2014-2015 USDA portfolio company from Larta’s ag practice. http://wholetrees.com/
· Stony Creek Colors, a current Larta ag practice portfolio company is based in Tennessee. The company’s founder, Sara Bellos, seeks novel and improved extraction techniques and supply chain development for indigo crop and black walnut hull to create their signature, bio-based, natural dyes - scaling away from polluting synthetic dyes in the fashion industry. http://stonycreekcolors.com/
Larta Institute is an innovation management organization that works with entrepreneurs in the hard sciences – companies that feed, fuel and heal the world. Using their trademark network-centric model as their guide, their trusted commercialization programs have been fine-tuned to provide highly customized business assistance to their portfolio companies.
Joining Vilsack and the three emerging companies on the AgTech Week agenda will be more than 75 sector-focused thought leaders, including Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Resources board, who will discuss the realities of the California drought, and Jack Bobo, senior advisor for biotechnology at the U.S. Department of State.
Additionally, representatives from Bayer CropScience, Monsanto, Syngenta Ventures, and Dow AgroSciences will discuss trends in research and M&A, while leading venture investors will discuss the evolution of agtech as an asset class. Top producers will share the farmer’s perspective in “A View from the Field.”
Presenting big data solutions to increase efficiencies and yield will be top innovators in farm management, including Conservis, Farmers Edge, FarmLink, and Farmers Business Network. Attendees also will hear of investment opportunities in agtech advancement hubs such as Israel and the Netherlands.
Visit www.agtechweek.com for the full agenda