1955 Capital’s Andrew Chung and his wife, Coral Chung, were looking forward to seeing the innovative interpretations of “About Time”, the theme of the 2020 Met Gala on May 4 before Metropolitan Museum officials postponed the event indefinitely due to nationwide measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

As a successful investor in sustainable technologies for the past 15 years, Andrew Chung has been an active proponent of sustainable manufacturing practices in fashion. His wife, CEO of Senreve and a prominent California designer, recently launched a new vegan product line for her luxury handbag brand.

Andrew Chung sat down with us recently (virtually, of course) for an interview. He mentioned being disappointed that the Met Gala had been postponed. However, he and his wife understand the importance of social distancing in keeping the nation healthy. He reminisced a bit with us about attending the 2019 event.

What is the Met Gala?

The Met Gala is the highlight of the New York City social calendar and is widely regarded as one of the most prominent and most exclusive social events in the world with 550 star-studded attendees from fashion, entertainment, and finance. Traditionally held on the first Monday in May at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this fundraising event marks the opening of the Anna Wintour Costume Center’s annual fashion exhibit within the museum.

The theme of the fashion exhibit sets the tone for the evening’s formal attire, and guests are expected to choose their fashion to match the theme. Unfortunately, the 2020 event has been postponed indefinitely due to the travel and social distancing restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. and Mrs. Chung at the 2019 Met Gala

The theme for last year’s Met Gala was “Camp: Notes on Fashion,” an intentionally enigmatic notion, based on Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay “Notes on Camp.” The concept was left to attendees to define with their fashion. Some defined it as “unique, absurd, and over-the-top.” Others took a more traditional approach and defined it as casual. Some others were undecided and dressed as a question mark.

Coral Chung chose a strapless red and pink gown with a fitted bodice and full skirt of interlocked squares from Southeast Asian designer Sebastian Gunawan. Her jewelry included a graceful teardrop diamond necklace and pink quartz earrings. On the back of her head, she wore a flurry of feathers, butterflies, and velvet hoops. The combined result was elegant, fun, and unique. Andrew’s attire for the evening was from Saint Laurent. He wore black pants, a black tuxedo shirt with a velvet bow tie, and a fanciful black jacket adorned with embroidered gold, green, and red symbols of the zodiac. On his feet were a pair of red patent leather shoes to match his wife’s gown.

“One of the best nights of our life as Coral shined on the red carpet. There were so many fantastical moments it was hard to come back to reality,” recalled Chung of the event. “It took a while to process all the emotions and inspiration from the night. Unforgettable.”  Chung also had an opportunity to speak to numerous CEO’s in the fashion world about the importance of sustainable products, better demand forecasting, and adopting “green” approaches to their supply chain. “Fashion accounts for 10% of global CO₂ emissions and almost 90% of textiles are left unpurchased each year and end up in a landfill.”

Of course, sharing the red carpet with celebrities on a rare night when they all let their guard down was fun too. Some of the most special encounters: from talking with Gal Gadot about his 6-year-old learning courage from Wonder Woman to reminiscing with Joan Collins on that time she was a guest on Star Trek, from Harry Styles encouraging Andrew Chung to record music again to discussing Burning Man and speculating on Sansa Stark’s fate with Sophie Turner – the night was simply magical.

Andrew Chung explained that another reason he loves attending these kinds of functions, especially the Met Gala, is that it gives him an opportunity to see his beautiful and talented wife, Coral, in her element as a leader in fashion.

In addition to the Chungs, 2019 attendees included event chair and editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, Anna Wintour; event co-chair Lady Gaga; designer Donatella Versace; singer, Celine Dion; and tennis star, Serena Williams. Besides Andrew, other attendees from the business world included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Blackstone founder Steve Schwartzman, and Uber founder Travis Kalanick.

Andrew and Coral are hoping next year’s event will still be held and also hope the country has healed and gotten back to some sense of normalcy by then.

Life is not just about black-tie charity events for the Chungs. Andrew Chung is the founder and managing partner of 1955 Capital, a venture capital firm founded in 2015 by Chung to invest and help promote companies that address the developing world’s most pressing challenges related to energy, healthcare, food, agriculture, education, and sustainable manufacturing. He was previously a general partner at Khosla Ventures, one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful investment firms. Chung has more than 15 years of experience in investing in these sectors, and 1955 Capital, which is based in San Mateo, California, has been actively investing in innovative start-ups that help to restore and sustain our planet. 

Coral Chung is the co-founder and CEO of Senreve, a “luxury brand for the multi-faceted modern woman” that she and launched in 2016. Her company’s high-end handbags have become an internet sensation.

1955 Capital is pursuing the commercialization of practical, cutting-edge solutions that can change the world.

Andrew Chung founded venture capital firm 1955 Capital in 2016 to be a conduit. Its reason for being is to connect the most promising technologies being developed in Europe and the Americas with players who are seeking to solve the challenges facing the developing world. Concentrating on environmentally sustainable energy production, healthcare delivery, and food production — and more broadly, emerging tech that can unleash progress in those areas — 1955 Capital is pursuing the commercialization of practical, cutting-edge solutions that can change the world.

Before establishing his own firm, Chung was a general partner at Khosla Ventures and investor at Lightspeed Venture Partners. Those roles brought Chung into close contact with a number of global companies – particularly those in Asia – across a broad range of economic sectors. Helping companies access markets like China and southeast Asia are part of 1955 Capital’s core capability. Chung’s track record and extensive contacts allowed him to raise $200 million in committed capital before his firm launched publicly in February of 2016.

“1955 Capital’s mission is to invest in technologies from the developed world to solve the developing world’s greatest challenges. The genesis of this mission is pretty simple. It’s a natural extension of everything that I set out to do in venture capital over the past 15 years as an investor in sectors like energy, environment, food, agriculture, health, and education,” says Chung. “Even in the early days in my career, I focused heavily on issues associated with sustainability, the problems that humanity is facing, and how technology might be able to solve or influence those problems. My team and I have trained all our lives to tackle this big mission.”

The firm’s name is in honor of a pivotal year of revolutionary transition. In 1955, some of the biggest names in tech were born: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Vinod Khosla (cofounder of Sun Microsystems), and Eric Schmidt (former long-time Google CEO). Rosa Parks launched the civil rights movement, and McDonald’s and Disneyland opened their doors. And it saw the death of legends like baseball Hall of Famer Cy Young, jazz great Charlie Parker, Alexander Fleming (who developed penicillin), Mary McLeod Bethune (civil rights leader), and none other than Albert Einstein.

Today, 1955 Capital is a player in the still-developing field of sustainability investment, trying to harness advanced technologies and passionate entrepreneurs with areas of vital need around the globe. Chung was already recognized as a long-time veteran in this area and decided to launch his firm to fulfill this critical global mission. Indeed, in the new world order created by COVID-19 and coronavirus, 1955’s focus areas are more important than ever.Subscribe

“Several groups approached me about starting my own fund. They thought I had an interesting playbook and background thesis. It helped that I spoke Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese. It helped that I had invested in and managed multiple deals in these less conventional sectors. It was suggested to me that this was a rare combination and that I had a shot to build a differentiated investment platform,” Chung explains when relating about the beginnings of 1955 Capital.

“That’s really what developed into the 1955 thesis that, again, is investing in technology from the U.S. and the developed world that has the potential to solve a pressing need that the world faces. We balance the impact of these investment themes and the ‘Save the World’ notion of it with an ability to generate significant returns as well.”

The Core Team

To carry out venture capital investments dedicated to driving innovation in these meaningful areas, Chung has assembled a passionate core team that can comfortably function in multiple settings on different continents. Like him, they tend to be renaissance men and women, comfortable and knowledgeable over a number of sectors and cultures and sharing a broadly humanistic motivation.

“At a foundational level, everyone on the 1955 team cares deeply about our mission — to invest in technologies that can make a difference, particularly in the developing world,” explains Chung. “The nature of the sectors that we look at — health, food, agriculture, energy, environment, education — require team members to be broad and deep across disciplines and be unafraid to explore new ideas. They also need to be thoughtful about how companies can access the global opportunity.”

Kathy Chen on 1955’s investment team shares many of Chung’s professional characteristics. She too has an MBA from Wharton and her previous position — at Unitas Capital, which was part of the growth equity team that spanned Asia, North America, and Europe — also involved developing sound cross-border strategies, especially with regards to expanding market share in China. She started her professional career in investment banking — including stints at Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and J. P. Morgan — with a focus on China. Her background also includes serving as a Packard Environmental Fellow at California Environmental Associates, which included delving deeply into the agriculture and aquaculture and other aspects of balancing economic development with environmental protection.

“Kathy was born in China but moved to the U.S. when she was young and is very bicultural. She’s helped me do a deep dive into areas ranging from alternative proteins to surgical robotics and applying pattern matching across all the types of companies we look at to guide 1955’s investment thesis and assess the global market opportunities,” notes Chung.

Rounding out the core 1955 Capital team are Venture Partners Ryan Gilliam and Benjamin Tseng, and Chief Financial Officer Jim Hinson. Gilliam, who holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering, is also CEO of the Fortera Corporation, which develops technology to enable the beneficial reuse of CO2 to produce a range of building material products that both directly capture and offset emissions. Gilliam’s role at 1955 centers on related areas like the energy sector, waste upcycling, and materials innovations, but he also lends his considerable operational experience in advising portfolio companies on developing global partnerships and scaling technologies. Tseng was formerly an investor at DCM Ventures, another notable cross-border venture fund, where he invested in advanced technologies across energy, healthcare, and agriculture and helped launch their Android Fund. Hinson, who is also a member of the executive committee of Greenough Consulting Group (GCG) and leads their Venture Capital practice area, has been deeply involved in financial planning and reporting at several major corporations over his 35-year career, including Tenaya Capital, Lehman Brothers, and APV Technology Partners.

“Not all firms are like ours. Other firms will hire someone who is a — pick your industry, ‘social media expert.’ And that’s all they invest in all day long,” explains Chung about his team’s dynamics. “We’re a bit different. We feel it’s critical not to be too grounded in conventional thinking about an industry and [that] the ‘experts’ can miss big opportunities for disruption.”

In addition, there is a network of individuals that the 1955 team has worked with that also have input into the decision-making process of the firm. Chung’s former portfolio company CEOs from his time at Khosla – including industry veterans Dr. Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of bioenergy company Lanzatech, and Marcus Meadows-Smith, CEO of agricultural company BioConsortia – have served the boards of 1955 portfolio companies.

“We then have in our extended 1955 family individuals who are at the top of their fields, including one of the foremost surgical robotic surgeons in the world, who help do the technical and go-to-market analysis,” continues Chung. “Our team combines a more industry-agnostic, objective view on new technologies with a rigorous industry-specific perspective to decide whether to invest in a startup. That’s the best way to identify relatively untapped opportunities to build a massive business that can transform and redefine the future of an industry. You need partners who are not afraid to do that.”

Pursuing the Vision

The team ultimately works to connect the advanced technological solutions that are reaching the market to the challenges facing the developing world under the broad umbrella of sustainability. According to its web site, the strategy of 1955 Capital is heavily premised on the expectation — due in large part to the explosive growth that has been unleashed this century — that “the developing world will face an onslaught of challenges in energy and environment, food safety and supply, and access to healthcare and education.”

That means having a foot in both worlds — the high-tech and the developing — and thereby seeing opportunities that can migrate over national borders. That is a dynamic that Chung does not think is fully realized.

“I think one of the things that many American and European entrepreneurs don’t see day-to-day is the massive opportunity there is in places like China, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East. China is about to become the leader in deploying many of these technologies because close to 2 million people are dying a year of air pollution-related disorders. There are 300 million people who don’t have potable drinking water. It’s the fastest-growing middle-class of all time, yet they question the safety of their food and whether the doctors in their country can heal them,” Chung elucidated at a 2017 Solve at MIT roundtable discussion. “Everyone now has the ability to afford better food and healthcare, and through social media they can see how everyone else in the world lives. And so, the opportunity for a technology entrepreneur in the United States and Europe to influence the course of how China, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa will develop is quite staggering.”

Seizing on that opportunity, while adding real-world value by acting as the transition point for intellectual capital being commercialized into tech solutions, is 1955 Capital’s ultimate ambition. The company acts as a cultural bridge that assists the management of emerging tech companies to evaluate their entry into emerging markets. And while Chung sees the entirety of the developing world as being on one side of this equation, his company’s focus — for both broadly economic and deeply personal reasons — will start with Asia.

Though not born in China like 1955 Capital’s Chen, the firm’s founder was born in the United States to recent Chinese immigrants and grew up working in his parents’ Chinese restaurant. It was on this bicultural foundation that Chung built his earlier career at Khosla and Lightspeed and is one of the core themes of 1955 Capital.

“Lots of entrepreneurs might find it hard getting through regulatory approvals without the right partner. Lots of people complain about Chinese regulations, but often it means they don’t have the right partner and advice,” is how Chung described it to AgFunderNews in 2016. “There’s so much money locked up in solving these big challenges, and politics backing it, that there are definitely some advantages to being involved in these sectors.”

The key is not just to see opportunities, but to have the know-how and experience to navigate the regulatory, financial, and cultural differences that have to be overcome. It comes down to cross-border execution while riding the bucking horse of venture capital. It’s a skill Chung has put in his time to master.

“I was in China 13 times last year. In some cases, flying in for six hours to negotiate deals with companies, or driving down dirt roads to villages to negotiate partnerships,” Chung related to Forbes in a 2016 interview when announcing the creation of 1955 Capital. “I’ve really doubled down on this type of strategy.”

Focusing the Approach

That strategy has led to 1955 Capital being deeply embedded in some of the most innovative economic activity currently underway in the world. That manifests itself both macro-economically by being players in broad areas like ClimateTech and FoodTech while concentrating on lending crucial support to specific companies in its portfolio.

For example, as the repercussions of global climate change are becoming ever more apparent — both from the crucial observations of the scientific community and everyday experiences of farmers and residents of coastal areas — the ClimateTech sector has heated up. It is dedicated to using tech solutions to lessen the impact of, well, the tech revolutions of previous centuries.

Recently, money has poured into the sector, including $1 billion going into Breakthrough Energy Ventures backed by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Jack Ma, and $10 billion going into the Earth Fund that Bezos founded. The profound worldwide impact of the COVID-19 crisis will only intensify this, in part because many of the repercussions of climate change — deforestation, habitat loss, and mass migrations — also heighten the risk of novel pandemics jumping from other species to humans.

“CleanTech lagged because consumers and enterprises didn’t take climate change seriously enough for it to impact their spending. Now that it is seen as an existential threat to the planet, there is more urgency about solving it by consumers, corporations, governments, and investors. It’s a perfect storm,” Chung explained to IPO-Edge.com in a February 2020 interview. “When a company [in China] is told it won’t be able to grow unless it reduces its carbon footprint, a solution becomes a matter of survival.”

Since its founding, 1955 Capital has heavily invested time in studying food supply and agricultural concerns. It is an area that Chung has studied for the last decade.

“There are a lot of areas in food and ag that are nice to have in the U.S. but could mean life or death in China or India. The populations of these Asian countries are growing along with the middle-classes who can afford to buy good food, and they want safe and plentiful and varied food to choose from. Unfortunately, they’re saddled with terrible soil conditions, not enough arable land, insufficient controls over local farming practices, and tech could be the answer to that,” Chung told AgFunderNews back in 2016. “We can help to bridge that gap, and that’s why the initial investor group came together, on both sides of the Pacific, to support bringing western innovators to greater challenges in the Far East. On the data side, there’s a revolution over here [the United States] with farmers becoming increasingly sophisticated in managing data on their land, but that’s only just beginning in China, and I think that type of tech will be very much needed.”

Among the companies in 1955’s current portfolio, Crop Enhancement is a company that specializes in increasing crop yields with agrochemical techniques that aim to minimize the use of pesticides while delivering specific nutrients to soils and fertilizers. 1955 Capital is one of several AgTech investment players backing the firm.

Likewise, Sustainable BioProducts — recently rebranded as Nature’s Fynd as part of an $80 million capital raise — takes microbes found in the geothermal springs of Yellowstone National Park and, via a novel and cost-efficient fermentation process, creates a range of food products that contain a nutritious and complete protein profile. Its method began as part of NASA research into food for use in long-term space travel and, like so many programs first aimed at space exploration, Earth-based spinoffs were realized (you can still pick up a can of Tang at the supermarket). Nature’s Fynd develops protein-rich microorganisms — which the company has officially dubbed Fusarium strain yellowstonensis — which can replace far more energy- and land-intensive protein sources in a wide range of foods.

These kinds of innovative companies — far ahead of the mainstream tech curve — not only need financial support and business mentoring but also allies in expanding across national borders. This is the special need Chung sought to fill when he established his firm.

“At 1955, we did not invest in a flood of companies and spread ourselves too thin after we raised our initial funds … I want to be on the speed dial of my CEO’s. I want to be knowledgeable enough and close enough to the company, so that I can make useful suggestions around how to build the company,” Chung explains. “Yes, we’re focused on generating profits and returns in areas that typically have been hard to make money in. In this new wave in sustainability investing, we need to ask ourselves what lessons we can learn from the past. It’s similar to all the other tech investment industries. Whether it’s biotech or IT or Bitcoin, there are boom and bust cycles when a lot of investors new to the sector get excited. A lot of money flows in. At times, big money is made. But a lot of money is lost when the boom cycle is over if investors are not prudent. I hope to apply the experience over the past 15 years of being involved in many successful companies in these challenging sectors to make an even bigger difference this time around.”

With that experience, Chung and 1955 Capital hope to aid many pioneering companies that could be vital to our collective future ride out these boom-and-bust cycles and bring their badly needed innovations to the world.

Recently, Andrew Chung of the investment firm 1955 Capital was involved in a substantial investment with Nature’s Fynd, one of the rising stars among startups in the alternative dairy and meat products marketplace. Using the natural resources of a microbe that can be used as a protein and food alternative, Nature’s Fynd manages food distribution in an ever-expanding world. The business is dedicated to finding alternative ingredients featuring all-natural and sustainable resources.

Food Tech for Future Investments

In order to manage the growing population and limited food resources we have here on our planet, humanity must come up with clever and cost-effective ways to mass-produce food. Simple as that. Nature’s Fynd is ready to help companies pave that pathway. Nature’s Fynd is a food technology company based in Chicago with research and development center headquartered in Montana. The company was co-founded by CEO Thomas Jonas, CFO Matthew Strongin, and Chief Science Officer Dr. Mark Kozubal. These three are joined by Chief Marketing Officer Karuna Rawal and Chief Technology Officer Jim Millis. 

Starring List of Investors

Nature’s Fynd was recently rebranded from Sustainable Bioproducts.  Coincident with this rebranding, Nature’s Fynd founders and investors raised $80 million in a Series B round. This funding comes from several notable sources. The top investment firms involved include Andrew Chung’s 1955 Capital, which led the Series A; Generation Investment Management LLP, where Al Gore serves as Chairman; and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which raised $1 billion from some of the biggest investors on the planet–Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Jack Ma, Vinod Khosla, and more. 

According to Andrew Chung, Founder & Managing Partner of 1955 Capital, who serves on the company’s board, “This was a pre-emptive move to raise new capital and will allow the company to accelerate its commercialization efforts. It will start producing products at the start of this month from its new 35,000 square foot manufacturing facilities in Chicago, with plans to double the size of the team to 100 by the end of the year,” in a statement to AgFunder Network. 

The funding is going to help Nature’s Fynd expand product lines and innovate new meat-free foods. CEO Thomas Jonas said, “In these challenging times, securing food for our growing population under the immense pressure of climate change becomes even more urgent. We must find new solutions that can both nourish people and nurture the planet. Our innovative technology was developed by studying nature’s own solutions for adapting – and ultimately thriving – in environments with limited resources.”

New Products by Nature’s Fynd

Currently, the market is waiting for Nature’s Fynd to reveal some of the alternative meat and dairy products developed with that funding. So, what exactly are these new meat-free products made from? The facility uses a specific microbe called Fusarium str. yellowstonensis, which comes from the geothermal waters at hot springs in Yellowstone National Park.

The microbe is fully digestible, and highly complex serving that as Chung stated is “a food-like substance, which gives a lot of the texture and structure of food for free.” The protein extract is processed through a highly innovative fermentation technique. This helps to break down the microbe and create a digestible and palatable protein source.

In an explanation about what Nature’s Fynd has to offer in its product portfolio, Chung said, “One of the biggest reasons we’re so excited about this company compared to any other food tech companies — and I saw many at Khosla where we were the first investors in Impossible Foods and Ripple [Foods] — is that they’ve really been able to develop tasty products across multiple food groups, faster and with elegant manufacturing processes at a low cost.” Impossible Foods is labeled as “meat made from plants” and produces the popular Impossible Burger sold at fast-food chains, restaurants, and grocery stores. 

Investing in a Novel Protein Source

Chung added, “[Nature’s Fynd has] IP around the microbe they discovered being a very novel protein source with all those amino acids, and highly digestible. But importantly, they also have IP covering the nature of the fermentation tech they’ve developed, that’s so cost-effective and grows protein using a fraction of the land and water resources typically required.”

Choosing to support Nature’s Fynd in this protein source was made easier through the stellar list of investors also on board with Nature’s Fynd and the R&D company’s commitment to finding sustainable food source alternatives.

As we all “shelter in place” and “socially distance” ourselves, we are learning a lot about what we can live without. And what we can’t.

Agri-foodtech investors seem to be collectively counting their blessings in that respect.

“We probably have it better than many of our generalist VC peers because the only thing people are buying right now is food. The one thing they’re allowed to go out and do is go to the grocery store,” Mark Kahn, co-founder of Mumbai-based venture capital firm Omnivore, tells AFN.

AFN has been hearing similar versions of that line from agri-foodtech VCs worldwide amid the Covid-19 pandemic, where day-to-day businesses are shuttering, startups and small businesses are rapidly laying off workers, and individuals, communities, and markets prepare for an ensuing economic downturn. 

Adam Anders of Amsterdam-based Anterra Capital describes agri-foodtech VCs as “comparatively lucky” in the difficult market circumstances because the agri-food sector is “traditionally resilient in a downturn.” In Chicago, Sanjeev Krishnan from S2G Ventures tells agri-foodtech VCs to “keep calm and carry on – long term, this is one of the best sectors to be invested in; we all still need to eat.” From Paris, Niccolò Manzoni of Five Seasons Ventures notes that business across the firm’s portfolio companies is going “almost as usual” with some increasing sales, both online and in retail, thanks to the resilience of the food sector. “We are reassured that food is going to be the last sector to stop.” In Singapore, Isabelle Decitre of ID Capital observes that the perception of the critical role that food and agriculture plays globally is “second only to the health sector” amid the immediate crisis.

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“Operationally, foodtech and agtech companies will be less impacted than many other sectors as they fall under the “essential industry” category, and in some cases, we’re seeing a spike in demand,” said Rob Leclerc of AgFunder, “but with what may be the greatest destruction of wealth in human history, capital is evacuating the market and a flat round may be the new 3x up-round for those companies lucky enough to thrive.”

Of course, VCs will claim confidence in the sectors that are relevant to them; even with rumors of startup valuations dipping as much as 40% across industries, many VCs are telling the world they’re open for business-as-usual in order to avoid mass panic among investors and startups. But to be fair, deemed an essential business by governments across the globe, they do have a point.

Business as (un)usual

However, even in arguably the most essential global market category right now (next to healthcare, perhaps), business is and will continue to be disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. The agri-foodtech innovation sector is no exception.

Growers and agri-processors are stripping down operations to essential functions and products to shore up capital for a potential squeeze, and government relief funds may not be forthcoming. (AFN‘s peers at Food Tank passionately criticized the US’s $2 trillion stimulus bill for favoring large-scale growers this week.)

Supply chains and logistics are also starting to struggle as many key workers are either sick or choosing to stay at home, so will likely function erratically at best—or stall. Tech startups in the space lacking adequate capital or contingency plans will struggle.

New venture capital deal-making will undoubtedly take a hit as a result, as will portfolio valuations. In the VC world broadly, the number of deals will drop, as a “lack of in-person meetings slows down sourcing and due diligence, even if most VCs still publicly express a desire to execute deals,” PitchBook notes in its Q2 analyst note on venture capital in the US.

That could happen in part because investors will first prioritize support for existing portfolio companies, rather than capital deployment. Andrew Chung of 1955 Capital says his firm has term sheet discussions in progress with three companies and intends to move forward with those.

“We are focused in the immediate term on providing useful advice and support to entrepreneurs,” he notes. In the next nine to 12 months, he expects to see that VCs “will get defensive, triaging their bulging portfolios.” (Check out Chung’s useful advice for startups here.)

Others agree that a deal volume dip is likely to show up in a few months, rather than immediately. Like 1955, most investors who spoke with AFN say they intend to follow through on signed term sheets and deals that have been in diligence for months. (This was not the case for restaurant tech Allset, which recently closed a downsized round after investors backed out at the last minute.)

“We think VCs with active funds (including ourselves) will continue to make new investments and deploy capital,” Dan Phillips of Cultivian Sandbox says, couching that “it’s likely that some firms raising new funds now will have a harder time raising capital (or hitting targets).”

Seana Day at Better Food Ventures paints a less rosy picture: the next three to six months will be “bad,” she tells AFN. “We’re deeply worried about logistics and labor availability and the impact that is going to have on agriculture, as well as tech companies trying to sell into an inherently risk-adverse customer base,” particularly as farmers and midstream players reserve cash, sideline non-essential food production activities, and pause innovation efforts.

Hierarchy of needs

In the venture capital world generally, PitchBook predicts an “overall increase in deal quality, as VCs reserve capital for the most promising portfolio companies and as new deals receive more scrutiny.” Agri-foodtech VCs tell AFN that the sector will see a lot more prioritization of the types of companies getting funded.

“We will probably see a shakeout among nice-to-haves versus need-to-haves,” in terms of how investors prioritize the types of tech they are investing in, predicts Day.

New investment firm Agroecology Capital, which mostly focuses on sustainable upstream technologies and closed its first deal in January with another in the works, is among those firms scrutinizing its pipeline for future deals in light of the pandemic.

“We’re refocusing a little on projects around the Maslow pyramid,” says partner Nicolas Denjoy, referring to the “hierarchy of needs,” which prioritizes basic human needs above “nice to haves” like comfort and luxuries. “We have to go back to really useful projects—not just the ones that make money, but which are needed in times of crisis.”

Agroecology has been engaging scientists to understand what future investment priorities should be in that respect. Anders at Anterra hopes that defaulting to hard science becomes more entrenched in the agri-foodtech sector more broadly.

“I both hope and expect that we will see a significant increase in respect for the role of science in providing solutions to human, plant and animal health–a change from a world where science and food were not always considered to fit well on a plate together or at least were not always discussed in a rational way,” he says. 

Losing steam on progress

One concern is that advancements in more environmentally-sustainable food production will stall or be altogether abandoned as cost becomes consumers’ prevailing consideration.

“I think industrialized agriculture will remain,” acknowledges Kahn, whose investment firm Omnivore focuses on high-impact technologies. He cites processed food companies like Campbell’s and those making frozen foods that have experienced a surge in sales in recent weeks.

Denjoy of Agroecology Capital expresses similar concerns. “I see people at [retail giant] Costco looking at a box of 12 organic eggs and a box of 50 [conventional] eggs and they buy the 50 eggs. Those are people who want to buy organic, but they’ll eat non-organic if it’s necessary,” he recalls. “I think that’s a good summary of where we stand in terms of the crisis. If there’s a lasting economic crisis, people will go back to what matters most, and that’s cost.”

The lesson in that warning sign is that agri-foodtech VCs focused on mission, impact and sustainability can’t count on “premium” offerings. Instead, they have to refocus efforts on bringing the cost of sustainable production in line with broad commodities and cost-led production.

Creative inspiration

On a positive note, agri-foodtech VCs tell AFN that they’re excited to see what new innovations ultimately emerge from startups confronting current market challenges, and trying to help the agri-food sector boost its resilience to future crises.

Day tells AFN that she anticipates “new paradigms” in the digitalization of the agriculture sector, particularly around automation. “Given the disruption to logistics and labor, we could see tech addressing those segments garner even more interest and actual commitments by users. Operators will have tested their organization’s human resource limits and see the value in digital tools that increase productivity and reduce dependence on manual labor.”

Weeks and months of social distancing measures and lockdowns could inspire new innovations in shelf-life enhancing technologies and new uses for food traceability platforms that “no one thought about two months ago,” adds Omnivore’s Kahn. “People will want to know their food hasn’t gone through too many hands.”

Duane Cantrell, co-founder of Fulcrum Global Capital, a new agri-foodtech fund based in the US Midwest, says the crisis elevates the importance and urgency of technologies that increase food production, reduce waste and improve safety and transparency.

There is a risk that with much of the innovation happening in shuttered city-based labs and university settings, that the pace of innovation will slow in the near-term. But the collective sentiment is that times of disruption and scarcity breed creativity.

Adds Chung of 1955: “I remain optimistic that there will be no slowdown of great ideas and an increasing number of entrepreneurs, both borne of necessity in this difficult time.”

Additional reporting by Jack Ellis in Singapore.

SAN MATEO, Calif., March 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — 1955 Capital, a global venture capital firm headed by Andrew Chung, has announced that it is making a substantial investment again in the food tech company, Nature’s Fynd. The company announced today that it has raised $80 million in new funding with both Generation Investment Management LLP and Breakthrough Energy Ventures leading the round. Nature’s Fynd, formerly Sustainable Bioproducts, was founded in 2012 with the mission of producing nutritional food products that are kind to the environment without using animals. Nature’s Fynd will use the investment funds to scale its technology and operations in order to commercialize its products with minimal environmental impact.

1955 Capital was the lead investor in the $33 million Series A round of funding for Nature’s Fynd. Andrew Chung, 1955 Capital founder and managing partner, has served on the board of Nature’s Fynd since 2018. This extends 1955 Capital’s largest portfolio investment to date.

“Nature’s Fynd has the potential to redefine the future of food,” said Chung about this new Series B investment. “They have developed tasty products across multiple food groups faster than any other food tech company that 1955 Capital has seen. Their elegant manufacturing process supports a scalable and cost-effective production method that will be critical for achieving competitive pricing, particularly in developing world markets where this technology is most needed. With the global impact of livestock-related illnesses like coronavirus and swine flu that have disrupted the world economy, it’s more critical than ever to build a clean and sustainable food supply.”

Nature’s Fynd has developed an entirely new protein source from its one-of-a-kind microbe, fusarium yellowstonensis, that was found in hot springs of its namesake, Yellowstone National Park. Fy is produced with 99% fewer greenhouse gases and 99% less land than beef. The company’s unique platform enables versatility that allows it to create a variety of nutritious and delicious foods cost-effectively across meat and dairy alternatives and support product lines for snacks, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Nature’s Fynd currently employs more than 50 people across its Chicago headquarters and its Bozeman, Montana R&D center. The company is ramping up production in a 35,000-square-foot manufacturing facility on the site of the historic Union Stockyards on Chicago’s South Side.

“In these challenging times, securing food for our growing population under the immense pressure of climate change becomes even more urgent,” said CEO and co-founder Thomas Jonas. “We must find new solutions that can both nourish people and nurture the planet. Our innovative technology was developed by studying nature’s own solutions for adapting — and ultimately thriving — in environments with limited resources.”

About 1955 Capital

1955 Capital was founded by Andrew Chung to invest in companies that can address the developing world’s most pressing challenges related to energy, healthcare, food, agriculture, education and sustainable manufacturing. With over a decade of experience investing in these sectors at leading global firms like Khosla Ventures and Lightspeed Ventures, Chung has experience in identifying technologies with significant impact potential in developing countries and supporting entrepreneurs in developing mutually productive partnerships. The firm is based in San Mateo, California.

For media inquiries please contact: press@1955.capital.

1955 Capital is a firm with an admittedly straightforward mission: They aim to invest in all the most disruptive technologies from the developed world, all in an effort to solve the planet’s greatest challenges at the same exact time. In a larger sense, they want to help entrepreneurs and innovators alike gain direct access to large and explosive end-markets to help accelerate, not only tech commercialization, but to create newer and better jobs, to foster partnerships, and to empower long-term growth and development simultaneously.

All of these are lofty goals for the venture capital firm, to be sure. But as the old saying goes ‒ “anything worth doing is worth doing right.”

From the moment of the firm’s inception until now, the core objective of founder and managing partner Andrew Chung has remained the same: He wants to capitalize on any and all opportunities to bring nations closer together by finally acting as a bridge between the ingenuity of the West and the accelerating, survival-driven demands of the East.

Soon after announcing the news that he was founding 1955 Capital in the first place, Chung also stunned professionals across the sector by revealing that he’d already raised $200 million ‒ money that he plans to invest in food, energy, agriculture, education and health-related technologies. Not only does he want to help commercialize these technologies in developing countries, but he wants to do so in China in particular ‒ a nation that has always been near and dear to his heart in more ways than one.

Andrew Chung: The Story So Far

For Andrew Chung himself, this is just another step in his long journey, not only as an entrepreneur, but as someone who has done a great deal to embrace his Chinese heritage over the years. His parents emigrated to the United States when he was very young and soon opened their own Chinese restaurant business. Because Chung was an avid watcher of American television like “Sesame Street,” he soon became able to speak English fairly well, which meant that his parents were quick to put him to work.

From the age of 5, he didn’t just man the cash register at his parents’ restaurant. He also displayed excellent math skills, so he was also responsible for calculating tax on transactions. He was clearly very smart, so his parents tasked him with performing a lot of the jobs that we now refer to as “outbound marketing” ‒ although that term had yet to come to fruition in those days.

These early experiences impacted Chung a great deal ‒ not only in terms of instilling within him that entrepreneurial spirit that he carries with him to this day, but also in regard to teaching him exactly how the world works. He learned very early on how to think about not only the customers, but about your relationships with the people you’re working so hard to serve. He learned it all both by watching the hard work and dedication that his parents poured into their humble venture, but by also doing it himself from such an early period in his life.

That passion served him well over the coming decades, particularly in terms of his education. Chung earned a BA in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with honors as a Detur Prize recipient. To put that into perspective, the Detur Prize is one of the oldest that Harvard has to offer and is designed to recognize those freshmen who attain a “very high academic standing in their first year at the college”, meaning the top 6%, and honors them with a book of their choice.

Dating back to Edward Hopkins, one of Connecticut’s earliest governors, the books chosen by the prize winners are then embossed with the Harvard and Detur seals, at which point they are presented to students at a ceremony hosted by the Dean of the College.

Chung later got his MBA from the Wharton School of Business.

Indeed, the $200 million raised by 1955 Capital ‒ and Andrew Chung’s career over the last two decades as an investor ‒ seems to be a logical “next step” in the journey he’s taken up to this point. Although his actions may be innovative and sophisticated, the core mission at the heart of it all could not be more straightforward. He wants to use his money to take disruptive startups born in places like the United States, Canada and Europe and find ways to grow them in the developing world, including in China ‒ thus capitalizing on unique opportunities and funding sources along the way.

Becoming the Bridge That Connects Today to Tomorrow

Looking to the future, Chung indicated that his approach with 1955 Capital is to focus on funding those technologies that can be commercialized in from one to three years following investment. Based on that criteria, the venture capital firm offers funding as low as $500,000 and as high as $15 million. 1955 can invest in seed to Series B rounds, but would typically look to invest in technologies that are close to bring a product to market.

Which is exactly the way things should be.

“I can be that bridge,” Chung recently said in an interview with Fortune. Of course, he’s speaking metaphorically. What he’s really interested in is a connection. For far too long, people have ignored the fact that the problems of the developing world aren’t unique to any one country. They’re all of our problems. Over the last decade in particular, technology has advanced at such a rate that we’ve never been more connected to one another than we are right now.

Physical borders between nations matter less than they ever have. When one of us fails, we all fail. But where one of us succeeds, it’s a good day for the entire planet.

With 1955 Capital, Andrew Chung (and his colleagues) will continue to dedicate themselves to creating situations that are more like the latter than the former for the foreseeable and sustainable future.