2021 marks a record-breaking year for AgriFoodTech. Indeed, it saw $50.4B invested in 2021 globally, representing a +67% increase since 2020, and a +55.3% CAGR between 2017 and 2021. And the 500 International AgriFoodTech companies selected for the FoodTech 500 2021 are no different. As a matter of fact, this year’s edition showcases a rather heterogeneous group of international businesses spanning from very early-stage companies to IPO’d ones enhancing the food supply chain from 47 different countries worldwide. When it comes to investments, they cumulatively raised $9.6 billion in funding over time and among them can be found 10 publicly-traded FoodTech companies, according to our own definition, as well as 7 unicorns.

Alongside providing a yearly snapshot of the state of the AgriFoodTech ecosystem worldwide, we at Forward Fooding decided to take an extra step and dig into our proprietary databases to estimate which companies among the FoodTech 500 are likely to go public within the next 12 months, based on a number of common traits they have shown against publicly traded companies.

So, let’s dive into the key findings!

Investment analysis

First of all, we looked at all patterns among more than 7,000 international AgriFoodTech companies as part of our FoodTech Data Navigator and deep-dived into the data related to a selection of over 30 publicly-traded international FoodTech companies that operate in each key verticals where the 500 finalist companies operate. By analyzing them, we extracted 3 indicators:

• longevity of the company before IPO’ing
• velocity between funding rounds 
• latest funding round 

As a benchmark, IPO’ed companies show average longevity of 9.2 years (from their founding date to filing their IPOs) and an average velocity between funding rounds of 1.2 years, while mostly going public after completing their Series D.

Secondly, by comparing these indicators with the journey of companies among the 2021 FoodTech 500 pack, we identified 7 companies with very similar characteristics to the IPO’ed ones that seem to be on the path to file their IPOs within the next 12 months.

Infographics Future IPO

As a matter of fact, all of these companies show average longevity (to date) of 9.9 years and an average velocity of 1.4 years between funding rounds and have completed their Series D, reflecting the indicators of the benchmarked IPOs.

Further supporting these projections, we saw that Greenlight Biosciences, which was really close to going public according to our 3 indicators by the end of 2021, announced  on 3rd February 2022 the completion of its IPO. Finally, along with Plenty, NotCo and Infarm, it has already joined the ‘Unicorn’ club. 

To make things even more interesting, we then took even a step further and applied those same benchmarks to the rest of the 2021 FoodTech 500 list in the quest of identifying other companies which showed a similar pattern to IPO. What we identified was another 13 front-runner companies on the trajectory to file their IPOs within the next 24 months.

Infographics IPO Front Runners

The indicators we found among these companies are equally relevant, with average longevity (to date) of 8.95 years, an average velocity of 2.4 years between funding rounds and for the majority having completed their Series C.

Agtech is the most represented activity among the companies just listed, represented by 14 out of 20 of them. The majority, namely 12, comes from the United States, followed by Israel, represented by two companies.

The IPO journey of FoodTech companies

As we analyzed the path of over 70 companies to date, we are well aware, as an additional consideration, that a startup’s journey towards its IPO can be affected by a significant amount of variables that these indicators might not be able to capture.

From one vertical to the other, companies might have different needs in terms of the amount of capital required to accelerate scalability and reach profitability, which hence has an impact on their journey to IPO. For example, looking at the vertical farming space, which is very capital intensive, Aerofarms’ decision to call off its planned IPO through SPAC in October 2021 while Plenty just announced their $400 million in Series E in January 2022, illustrates the fact that these companies might require a few more rounds of private funding before being in a position to go public.

Moreover, startups from emerging markets might find it easier to go public in local stock markets given the support of local investors and decide to anticipate their IPOs earlier than Series C+ funding rounds.

Last but not least overall, valuations in the AgriFoodTech sector are rising rapidly. This is giving an incentive for founders to try to sell their company pre-series A/B, therefore building upon an IPO and SPACs frenzy allowing more and more established companies to aim for earlier exits.

Conclusions

In conclusion, as valuations and raised capital increase in the AgriFoodTech ecosystem, going public is becoming increasingly common and is seen more and more as a strategy towards consolidation also for earlier stage companies.

The FoodTech 500 2021 list reflects these trends, with its 10 publicly-traded FoodTech companies, 7 unicorns and the 20 companies on their way to IPO in the next 12-24 months.

If you want to know more about the global investment landscape, diversity metrics and other data points essential to understand where the AgriFoodTech global ecosystem will be heading in the foreseeable future, check out the full-ranked 2021 FoodTech500 list on the FoodTech 500 website or download the official FoodTech 500 white-paper and reports here.