LeanVentures

Weekly Digests (upcoming deadlines for impactpreneurs: programs, fellowships, challenges, pitch events, bootcamps, incubators, accelerators, funding opportunities)

This is a blog post in the series “Resources for impact entrepreneurs”:  Growth Opportunities for Impact Entrepreneurs. Part 1.2: Regional Food & Agriculture Programs.

Part 1.1: Global Food & Agriculture Programs

Part 2: Global and Regional Water Programs

Part 3: Global & Regional Mobility & Transportation Programs

Part 4: Global & Regional Smart Cities & Urban Innovation Programs

Part 5: Global and Regional Sustainability & Circular Economy Programs

Part 6: Global & Regional Climate Programs

Latest Weekly Digests and Resources for Your Impact Startup Programs Search

Fellowships:

FAO UN Fellowship: designed to attract fellows, typically PhD students, researchers and professors, who have an advanced level of relevant technical knowledge and experience in any field of the Organization.

Co-operative Research Programme: Sustainable Agricultural and Food Systems.

Kirchner Food Fellowship: three fellowship programs that harnesses the power of millennials to find, fund and assist promising socially responsible agricultural businesses; geographical coverage: Central America, Mexico.

Networking:

EIT Food: Europe’s leading food innovation initiative, working to make the food system more sustainable, healthy and trusted.

AGRF, Heifer International and Generation Africa: Pitch AgriHack, a pitch competition awards cash prizes to youth technology innovators in Africa’s agriculture and food sectors.

LadyAgri: a network of International and African professionals linking agri-businesses with the finance community, social impact funds, through which women-agri- entrepreneurs can develop and upscale their businesses in Africa and Small Island Developing.

Awards:

VALUE4HER Connect: Women Agripreneurs of the Year Awards, recognizing African women agripreneurs who have excelled in the agricultural value chain and have demonstrated remarkable innovation in their businesses by having an impact on food security, climate resilience, women, and youth empowerment

Incubators and Accelerators:

ToasterLAB: agri-food business acceleration program, helping promising start-ups and SMEs to scale up and industrialize their products and services and accelerate their time to European and French market.

World Resources Institute: Land Accelerator, a four-month program and curated network for entrepreneurs who restore degraded forests and farmland; geographical coverage: Africa, Latin America, South Asia.

The Yield Lab: enabling entrepreneurs to sustainably revolutionize agrifood systems; regional accelerators: North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe.

EIT Food: supporting innovative impactful agrifood entrepreneurs and startups to deliver new food innovations and businesses across Europe (incubator, accelerator, scaleup program).

X-Europe: 6 acceleration cohorts for European startups; the areas include AgriTech.

Fresh Ventures Studio: a venture building program, co-founding companies with experienced professionals and entrepreneurs to address systemic challenges in the food system; for EU participants, require all participants to locate to Rotterdam for the physical part of the program.

StartLife: StartLife à la Carte, a tailor-made program specifically designed to help agrifoodtech startups connect with their peers and initiate collaborations with investors, researchers and corporate partners.

Hatch Colab: a 12-month program (with periods of residence in Geneva) for Europe-based entrepreneurs committed to solving humanity’s grand challenges and driving sustainable change; the sectors include healthcare.

Future Hub: Open Innovation Sustainability Accelerator, a kickstarter  for startup & enterprise co-creation; five sustainability and GreenTech areas: Mobility, Food & AgroTech, Smart cities & Energy, Supply Chain & Logistics, Sustainable Business & Circular Economy; geography: Baltic countries.

FAO and UNIDO: 3ADI+, Accelerator for Agriculture and Agroindustry Development and Innovation; pilot countries: Bangladesh, Suriname, Tanzania.

Big Idea Ventures: food accelerators in New York, Paris, Singapore.

Future Food Asia Platform: aiming to accelerate open innovation in AgriTech and FoodTech across Asia Pacific, with the goal to catalyze and align an ecosystem to cope with the challenges of food.

Kindle VC: mentorship (incubator/accelerator) and EIR support for startups in US and India; the focus sectors include agritech.

Pangea: a Scaleup Program for Africa-based impact driven startups; the sectors include Agriculture.

Village Capital, supported by the IKEA Foundation: O-Farms – Making the Most of Food, helping scale circular agribusiness innovations in East Africa.

Village Capital, with the support of Visa Foundation: Future of Food LatAm AgriTech and FoodTechAccelerator, an investment readiness program for Latin American startups that are tackling the region’s most pressing challenges in the agritech and foodtech sectors.

Jusoor, Entrepreneurship Academy, Zain, Zinc, Marcho Partners: Jusoor Agriculture Accelerator supporting start-ups addressing solutions to challenges faced in the agriculture sector in Jordan and Lebanon.

Glocal: an accelerator for both, startups and midsized established companies in the Agribusiness Sector in Latin America.

Katapult Africa: setting up accelerators and investment vehicles for startups within agritech and foodtech.

Endeavor SA and FMO: African Agri-Tech Scale Up program, providing entrepreneurs with highly-tailored, structured mentoring through Endeavor’s global network of industry experts and investors as well as other critical resources to accelerate the growth of their early-stage agribusinesses.

+Impact Accelerator: Circular Economy within Agrifood, an acceleration program for Nordic startups.

Foodtech.ac: an accelerator for foodtech and agritech startups preparing them to launch, scale and fundraise; geographical coverage: Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Eastern Europe, Europe.

GROW: Southeast Asia’s first dedicated agrifoodtech accelerator with an impact focus; onsite and online format for startups from anywhere.

Village Capital: RURAL ENTERPRISE ECOSYSTEM AFRICA.

Stay tuned on Linkedin and Twitter for more useful resources and updates on online programs, fellowships, awards, competitions, incubators, accelerators.

Other helpful blog posts:

Opportunities for Women Impact Entrepreneurs. Part 1: Learn and Grow

Opportunities for Women Impact Entrepreneurs. Part 2: Funding Solutions

Impact Investing Platforms & 600+ Global, Regional and National Impact Investors

Founder’s Bias, and Startup Lessons for Impact Entrepreneurs

Be Your Own Mentor series (tools, templates, resources for impact entrepreneurs)

Weekly Digests (upcoming deadlines for impactpreneurs: programs, fellowships, challenges, pitch events, bootcamps, incubators, accelerators, funding opportunities)

This is the first blog post in the series “Growth Opportunities for Impact Entrepreneurs”. Part 1.1: Global Food & Agriculture Programs.

Part 1.2: Regional Agriculture & Food Programs

Part 2: Global and Regional Water Programs

Part 3: Global & Regional Mobility & Transportation Programs

Part 4: Global & Regional Smart Cities & Urban Innovation Programs

Part 5:Global and Regional Sustainability & Circular Economy Programs

Part 6: Global & Regional Climate Programs

Latest Weekly Digests and Resources for Your Impact Startup Programs Search

Food naturally connects all of us and it is certainly the easiest way for every single person to make a positive impact (from healthier eating patterns to reduced food waste), so let’s start with global growth programs for food & agriculture ventures.

Tools & Templates:

EIT Food: Startup manual.

Fellowships:

Acumen Academy: Food Systems Fellowship, bringing together systems leaders with an entrepreneurial mindset from across the world, who understand that it will take all of us to tackle the greatest food systems challenges of our time (running April to October).

Online Platforms, Networking, and Pitch Events:

SAIRA: a digital matchmaking platform that tackles the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by bringing established experts together with upstart innovators and facilitating long-term initiatives (incl. food&agriculture opportunities).

Food Entrepreneurs Community: an online community for those wanting to transform & power the new food revolution.

Good Food SME Hub: Small businesses making our food more nourishing, sustainable, equitable and resilient.

Vevolution: the plant-based and cell-tech business community.

Food Tech Matters: bringing together the investor, start-up and industry community.

FoodBytes: a digital and physical discovery program connecting the best and brightest startups with corporates and investors through structured mentor sessions, one-on-one corporate and investor meetings, and more, culminating in a live pitch competition.

Vegan Women Summit: VWS Pathfinder, first female founder summit and pitch competition dedicated exclusively to plant-based innovation.

Awards & Challenges:

Arrell Food Institute: Arrell Global Food Innovation Awards recognizing global excellence in the broad area of food innovation and community impact:  Research impact and Community impact awards.

World Food Forum: Startup Innovation Awards, a global startup competition established to support and showcase innovators and entrepreneurs who are harnessing the power of technology to drive the sustainable transformation of agri-food systems in support of ending global hunger and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Thought for Food: a global agri-food-tech innovation challenge.

The Future of Sports, The Future of Medicine and FoodFWD: Forces of Change Awards, awards for innovators across the food, sports and health industries.

Topsector Tuinbouw & Uitgangsmaterialen: IMPACT 2025 – Topsector T&U Innovation Prize,  selecting international and ground-breaking innovations that contribute to the realisation of sustainable horticulture: cross-border innovation.

Forward Fooding: FoodTech 500, showcasing selected international AgriFoodTech startup and scaleup companies using a unique methodology to rank them based on their business size, digital footprint, and sustainability practices.

UN Climate Change Conference: Tech For Our Planet challenge programme, an opportunity for startups to pilot technology that will help reach our net zero targets (incl.Challenge 2 On Our Plate).

Attention FWD: Forces Of Change Awards, honoring innovators who are making an impact and shaping the future (the sectors include food).

Future Food-Tech: Innovation Challenges for start-ups to tackle some of the most critical issues facing the food-tech industry (The Kellogg Challenge: new microbiome-based innovation for gut wellness; The Unilever Challenge: improving the taste, texture, sustainability of plant-based meat and dairy alternatives).

Iberdrola: Agrivoltaics Startup Challenge, seeking low-cost and environmentally-friendly solutions to combine the roll-out of photovoltaic plants and certain primary sector activities in rural areas in a sustainable way.

XTC: a social innovation startup competition; the sectors include agtech&food.

IFT: Global Food System Challenge.

TFF Foundation: a 6-week challenge period with curated, on-demand digital content, weekly entrepreneurship, and topic-related live sessions that feature industry leaders and successful agrifood tech startups, and 24/7 support access.

SVG Ventures: THRIVE Global Impact Challenge, a global search for the most innovative startups who are advancing a more sustainable future for agriculture.

World Food Program: Innovation Challenge 2021, in search of game-changing ideas to build stronger, more sustainable food systems, addressing hunger at the root and galvanizing international cooperation on food security.

UN WFP: a call for applications in search of game-changing ideas addressing hunger at the root and galvanizing international cooperation on food security.

Agro Innovation Lab, RWA, biohelp: Bio Innovation Challenge for startups, innovative small or medium-sized enterprises, spin-offs and researchers from an innovative scientific field with solutions in the areas of biological crop protection and farming materials.

Incubators & Accelerators:

SEIP: an online incubation program matches quality seeds with the best soil for sprouting.

Counterfactual Ventures: a startup creation studio, an incubator and venture capital fund that is in the business of replacing factory farming and unsustainable fishing practices with scalable alternative protein solutions.

ProVeg Incubator: supporting pioneering companies that are developing disruptive alternatives to animal-based products and services.

Rockstart: funding and empowering purpose-driven founders scaling impactful solutions by leveraging emerging technologies and new business models that improve our food supply system from soil to gut.

NovaUCD: AgTechUCD Agccelerator, a 12-week intensive accelerator programme  for AgTech & FoodTech startups

SOSV: accelerators for elite startups from around the world tackling the biggest problems; the areas include disruptive food.

100Accelerator: an accelerator for innovative solutions that have the ability to scale quickly and make a significant impact on one or more of the challenge areas (incl. smart agriculture).

FoundersLane: several programs for startups; the focus sectors include agriculture.

Plug and Play: 60+ accelerators; the focus areas include food&beverages and agtech.

Kaizen Company: two hybrid technology incubator/accelerator programs to address global challenges in food security and conflict resolution.

RootCamp: incubators and accelerators focused on agrifood tech innovation (for startups from anywhere, but the program takes place in Hannover).

Sente: looking for innovative startups that are disrupting the indoor agriculture world (3 startup programs).

NetImpact: Food Solutions Challenge, an accelerator and pitch competition focused on finding solutions to the most pressing issues in food and agriculture.

FoodFutureCo: a scale-up accelerator in food, agriculture, social, & environmental entrepreneurship.

HortiHeroes: startup program for food & flower startups

Eatable Adventures: an accelerator for food companies.

THRIVE Accelerator: supporting seed stage startups from all areas of the value chain whose technologies drive us towards a more efficient, sustainable, and secure agriculture future.

Acumen Academy: Climate Resilient Agriculture Accelerator, helping to scale your business and bolster the climate resilience of smallholder farmers.

Bind 4.0: connecting dynamic startup teams with well-established companies, to provide external solutions for their internal digital transformation challenges while promoting the development of commercial skills and encouraging the immersion of startups in the local ecosystem, catalyzing new business opportunities; the sectors include food.

Leonhardt Ventures: an innovation accelerator focused on Convergence of Bioelectrics & Biologics for Organ Regeneration and Healing.

Brinc: FoodTech Accelerator for global startups developing processes to fix the broken food system.

GROW: Southeast Asia’s agrifoodtech accelerator with an impact focus (online and onsite format for startups from anywhere).

Sprout: helping you navigate your entrepreneurial journey so your company and product gets noticed by Investors who ‘get it’ and want to see you grow a global innovation; location: virtual program, but teams will be expected to travel to New Zealand for a minimum of two visits. It’s our expectation that each company has a business plan to address the New Zealand market and/or connect with one of Sprout’s partners.

FoodTech Accelerator: a Milan-based accelerator, selecting up to 10 of the best startups worldwide each year to boost food innovation.Feel free to follow #LVfinds on Twitter and Linkedin for occasional updates.

Stay tuned on Linkedin and Twitter for more useful resources and updates on online programs, fellowships, awards, competitions, incubators, accelerators.

Other helpful blog posts: 

Opportunities for Women Impact Entrepreneurs. Part 1: Learn and Grow

Opportunities for Women Impact Entrepreneurs. Part 2: Funding Solutions

Impact Investing Platforms & 600+ Global, Regional and National Impact Investors

Founder’s Bias, and Startup Lessons for Impact Entrepreneurs

Be Your Own Mentor series (tools, templates, resources for impact entrepreneurs)