Los Angeles, California and Danvers, Massachusetts, USA
October 30, 2014

Global AgInvesting (GAI) and Larta Institute (Larta) today announced an exclusive partnership that combines the industry-leading strengths of each company to catalyze the agriculture technology investment sector with a groundbreaking new event to be held in June 2015 in San Francisco, California.

GAI AgTech Week will provide two and a half days of engaging keynote presentations by industry leaders, thought-provoking panels, innovative company presentations and interactive workshops, all designed to educate and inspire investors and entrepreneurs with a broad range of investment opportunities in the food and agriculture technology sectors worldwide.

The partnership between GAI and Larta will draw on the unique strengths of both companies and their combined experience in organizing over 30 international events developed specifically for the food and agriculture industry. Since 2009, GAI has hosted over 6,500 sector-focused attendees in New York, Geneva, London, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi. Since 2005, Larta has assisted 9,900+ innovators through partnering and investment forums, national-scale commercialization initiatives on behalf of agencies such as USDA, NIH, and NSF, and showcased hundreds of breakthrough start-ups solving global food and agtech and related issues around the world.

“GAI AgTech Week comes at a critical time for the industry and provides a unique opportunity to assess how far agriculture technology has come in terms of being viewed as an emerging asset class,” said Philippe de Lapérouse, co-chair of GAI AgTech Week and managing director at HighQuest Group, a globally recognized agricultural advisory firm and owner of the Global AgInvesting series. “This program will redefine the food and agtech innovation marketplace, address key industry challenges and create the opportunity for increased deal flow.”

Endorsement of this event is pouring in from the agriculture industry, the investment community and academic organizations. Supporting organizations include, amongst others, Finistere Ventures, AVAC Ltd, Anterra Capital, Omnivore Partners and the University of California, Davis.

“It is appropriate to acknowledge the importance of San Francisco and the Bay Area as a recognized epicenter of innovation capital, and this leadership role is extending increasingly to the agriculture sector,” said Arama Kukutai, managing director of Finistere Ventures and head of 

the GAI AgTech Week Innovation Advisory Board. “The West Coast is a nexus for talent, capital and integration of capabilities key to the growth of new innovation in agriculture.”  California is the highest agriculture producer by GDP in the U.S., and this only adds industry relevance to the unique venture and growth capital communities present in Silicon Valley and the city.

"In catalyzing investment and strategic interest in agriculture technology, our efforts are as much about convening a community as a conference,” said Rohit Shukla, event co-chair and Chief Executive Officer of Larta Institute. “This has been the basis of the work of both organizations, and GAI AgTech Week will reinforce this commitment, with the West Coast serving as its hub. We are delighted and proud to partner with GAI on this extraordinary investment in establishing the primacy of this critical area in our backyard.”

Additional information will be coming soon. Visit www.agtechweek.com for updates.

About Global AgInvesting

Global AgInvesting (GAI) is the world's leading resource for events, research, and insight into the global agricultural investment sector. Since 2009, GAI conferences continue to be the most critical and well attended agriculture investment events in the world, attracting more allocators and senior-level decision makers than any other. GAI currently has four events annually in New York, London, Singapore and Dubai, and produces the Global AgInvesting Quarterly newsletter and the Global AgDevelopments news aggregation service. Global AgInvesting events and publications are produced and conceived by HighQuest Group, a leading global advisory firm serving the agriculture, agribusiness, grains/oilseed, food, finance and biofuels markets. www.globalaginvesting.com

About Larta Institute

Larta’s mission and passion is to energize the transformation of technology ideas into solutions that elevate economic opportunities and make lives better for people around the world. For 20 years, Larta has assisted and transformed 9900+ innovations into commercially successful enterprises that positively impact the human good. Commercialization means wrestling with constantly changing facts on the ground and experimenting with different ways of gaining customer traction, visibility and viability. Larta works side-by-side with entrepreneurs, industries and governments to help them achieve measurable goals and access specialized expertise and resources through a unique Network-Centric model. Larta Institute is a non-profit mission-driven organization. www.larta.org