Food4Future Panel | Exploring investment opportunities in the food industry
During the first day of the Food4Future fair that took place in May 13th 2025 in Bilbao, Amparo de San José, Head of Network and Business Development at EIT Food moderated a table where different stakeholders in the food industry shared impressions on how investors are facing changes in the agrifood sector and the challenges and opportunities that startups and corporates are currently facing.
Agrifood is at the intersection of some of the most pressing global challenges: food security, environmental sustainability and climate resilience. With population growth, resource scarcity and increasing pressure to reduce emissions, innovation across the food and agriculture value chain is no longer optional: it is strategic. Food agrotech accounted for 5.5% of all venture capital in 2023, down from 6.7% in 2022.
The session hosted 4 key industry player: Sheila González (from the Ayming consultancy firm), Roberto Vitón (from The Yeield Lab), Cristina Guzman (from Sparkfood Sonae) and Rafaél Ibañez, (from Pampa Start Vc). They all agreed that, despite the decrease of around 6% in the investment within the Agrifood sector during 2024, we are currently in a good moment to raise capital. "The main goal we are encountering is to find the talent to that really delivers products, services and solutions for the industry that will generate a real impact that is sustainable in time" commented Rafael Ibañez. "Startups are reaching a maturity, especially those focusing on AI and robotics that share data to improve the way the industry gathers information" added Cristina Guzman from Sparfood Sonae.
300 VCs and than 25 Thousand startups to invest in
Roberto Vitón explained that there are over 300 VC's that invest in Agrifood, with over 25K startups that are populating the food ecosystem. "The challenge is to find the correct opportunities that make real impact in the industry", pointed out. Vitón explained that generally startups are trying to focus on the technology and the solution rather than on the problem. "If the producto does not have the costs correctly calculated or the capacity to face a rise of the scale in their work, then it's not the right startup".
In this context, detecting market needs and the cases with the most opportunities for success is vital. One of the areas on which more bets have been placed in recent years is the digitization of the sector, with improvements in production and a breakthrough in impact measurement. "50% of the reason why we invest on a specific startup is due to the positive impact it can make over the industry" remarked Cristina Guzman from Sparkfood Sonae.
There is actually an advantage that the Agrifood sector has over others, which is the focus on the ESG criteria. Corporates are all focusing on those and are increasingly competing to help startups and participating in the run for that change.
The connection point
In terms of investment, the speakers pointed out that Europe offers plenty of financing opportunities for statups and a big scientific base that has been built thanks to public funding. The challenge now is to empower those startups to keep obtaining funding from private VCs to be able to scale and take their innovations to other regions of the world.
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