Thrive to survive: Limerick at heart of agri-innovation in Silicon Valley

Imbalance between supply and demand led to formation of leading agri-food accelerator

John Hartnett with US Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue at the launch of the USDA Innovation Agenda in February.

In 2010, John Hartnett from Limerick set up an investment fund — SVG Ventures — in Silicon Valley because he felt that companies didn’t just need money, they needed to access mentorship and guidance, customers, be able to scale their business, and become more aware of the eco-system and infrastructure around their companies.

It was the beginning of a journey into agriculture and food that he had never really envisioned up to that point.

John has since been asked to help the US Agriculture Department with its agri-innovation policy and has also established the John Hartnett Centre at Limerick IT to help local entrepreneurs realise their dream.

“What people don’t realise is that Silicon Valley is very rich in agriculture; to the south are the central valleys which are the capital of fresh food for the US.

“It’s about a Є10bn dollar business; to the north of us is Sonoma Valley and Napa Valley and they are the top places in the world for wine,” he said.

“In 2011/12 nobody was taking any notice of agriculture; I looked at population, there was a potential growth there of 25bn more people; and consumer habits.

The consumer was changing, there is an exploding middle-class that are looking for healthier more nutritious food.

“In addition people are becoming more aware of where their food is coming from, how sustainable it is and the impact it is making on the world.

“Then when I look at the supply side there is 50% less arable land in the world since the 1960s.

“There is water shortage in the world, there is a labour shortage, there is climate change, and there are significant challenges around food safety, so I saw this big imbalance between supply and demand.

“Where this is an imbalance of this kind, there is an opportunity and you just can’t do the same things that you always did, you have to do something different.” 

And, that is exactly what he did; he turned the situation into an opportunity and founded Thrive, which is an agri-food accelerator focused on the agri-food area.

“What I really wanted was to build the ecosystem needed but farmers were sceptical of innovation and how they could handle it — so there was a bridge there and I decided to hold a summit and bring everyone involved in the process together," John said.

Joining forces

He founded the AgTech Summit eight years ago joining forces with Forbes Media and brought everyone in the industry together in California.

It was a great success expanding into the midwest and Indianapolis shortly after.

Today, the company works with over 5,000 startups from over 100 countries around the world and is recognised as the number one agri-food accelerator in the world.

Thrive by SVG Ventures is also considered to be the most active investor in ag-tech globally.

“Last year I was asked by the Secretary for Agriculture here in the US, Sonny Perdue, to help with the innovation imperative for the US — we launched the innovation agenda in December with a focus on how to do more with less. 

"How do we create a sustainable supply chain? How do we reduce waste from the supply chain? How do we make agriculture a more environmentally-friendly business?"

Meanwhile, over the last five years Silicon Valley has been the centre of the world for innovation — all the entrepreneurs are coming to Silicon Valley and John’s company is gaining from this.

About 65% of the entrepreneurs that work with Thrive are from outside the US.

I feel passionate about food, agriculture and making an impact.

"One of the things we launched this year was Thrive Africa and we're doing that in conjunction with the US State Department,” added John.

“We are very excited about this and I think it is going to make a big impact on the ecosystem and in the way they do things there because if we can apply some of the technologies that are changing the world in agriculture today in Africa then it would be a very meaningful thing to do.

“More recently we have started to do business with Ornua as well; in fact this whole area provides a great opportunity for Ireland.

“We set up the Hartnett Centre in Limerick Institute of Technology — they have an entrepreneur programme there and I get the chance to see a lot of entrepreneurs from Ireland through that programme which is great.

“We also work with Enterprise Ireland.” He says the focus now is on ‘touchless' supply chain “because you want to prevent issues with food safety”.

“So robotics, automation, AI is also an area that has been accelerated in the food supply chain.

“Worldwide we want to build a resilient supply chain because Covid-19 has challenged us in so many different ways.

“Resiliency is going to be led by innovation and that has created a new focus in this area.“