-: Elly Truesdell, partner at Almanac Insights.
So, Almanac is a $30 million venture fund.
We look across the food and beverage landscape
and look to invest in consumer brands,
in agricultural companies, technology companies
that are supporting and, hopefully, transforming
the food system in a positive way.
My role in my job is to access new,
interesting opportunities and find deal flow.
It's also supporting our current portfolio
with any number of operational,
network resource, hands-on benefits.
On the other hand, it's also
just doing a ton of diligence
on the investments we are looking at.
I think it's been really interesting,
because we certainly have a financial
half to our team, and I bring more
of a strategic background, purchasing,
an overall food trends background to the mix.
We look earlier-stage,
but we are a bit of generalists.
We're a small fund, especially in the scheme
of investment funds in New York and in the world.
But, we find ourselves looking
at seed deals, so very small companies.
They can be pre-revenue
or having just, just launched.
We look at growth-stage companies
that are much later and are looking
to probably take us on as a strategic investor
rather than for our capital.
Very often we're taken on as operational partners
where we can really dig in, provide our network,
and support companies that way.
But, for considering a consumer product good
for a CPG food brand, which is mainly what I look at,
that could be Siggi's Yogurt,
that could be KIND Bar,
any sort of food products like that,
we have a number of criteria, but I would say
some really, really big ones are team,
experience, level of integrity, trust, track record.
We look at product itself and the brand.
We look at the addressable market
and how big we feel the product
and product category is to meet.
Then, based on our backgrounds
and my own food philosophy or ideology,
we really are looking for brands that are
providing some sort of meaningful solution,
meaningful alternative, or transforming
the food system in some way.