Simply over per week in the past, we caught up with Massive Thought Ventures’ managing accomplice Andrew Ive in Tokyo to speak meals tech investing. Ive was in Japan for SKS Japan, The Spoon’s occasion that we began in 2017 in partnership with Sigmaxyz, which has grown to turn into Japan’s preeminent meals tech summit.
Whereas we had been stunned to see Andrew in Japan, he informed us it’s pure since his firm has been centered on Asia since day one.
“A part of the rationale why I’m in Tokyo is that we’re a world agency,” Ive mentioned. “We opened our Singapore workplace on the identical day as our New York workplace as a result of Asia was all the time going to be an extremely vital a part of our enterprise. And clearly, not simply the enterprise half, however the meals communities.
Andrew informed us he’s enthusiastic about Japan as a result of he’s seen an actual improve in exercise over the previous couple of years.
“I feel the corporates right here, they’re beginning to consider how can they work with exterior companions, entrepreneurs, like SKS and so forth, to kind of actually improve the vibrancy of the Japanese meals system.”
Ive additionally talked about Massive Thought Ventures’ initiative to harness the mental property of universities within the US by launching corporations. The fund, referred to as Era Meals Rural Companions, introduced final week that it had launched its first portfolio firm, TerraSafe Supplies, a cloth science firm growing new merchandise, coatings, and purposes for sustainable packaging.
“These universities have gotten an infinite array of IP,” Ive mentioned. “Historically, they solely ever actually commercialized about 1% of the entire work, which implies there’s an enormous treasure trove of options and issues that may actually repair plenty of the issues within the meals sustainability house that they haven’t actually discovered the way to commercialize but.”
You possibly can hearken to our full dialog beneath.
