Visual technologies are powering developments in food and agriculture that will change the way the world grows, manufactures, transports and consumes food. Visual sensors and computer vision will enable the industry to rise to meet the demands of our world today and are generating massive business and investment opportunities.

In this free, virtual event we gave a sneak peek at the findings we will publish in our 2020 LDV Capital Insights report and showcased several keynote speakers who are true pioneers in the food & agriculture space. Attendees also got to see some of our unpublished research into the visual tech revolutionizing food & agriculture. Our past LDV Capital Insights reports have covered Healthcare, Logistics, Manufacturing, and how many cameras will be in the world by 2022.

Speakers

Jorge Heraud

Blue River Technology - John Deere,
CEO & Co-Founder

Om Malik

True Ventures,
Partner

Aidan Connolly

Cainthus,
CEO

Lindon Gao

Caper,
Co-Founder & CEO

Evan Nisselson

LDV Capital

Founder & General Partner

Leah Oppenheimer

LDV Capital 
2020 Summer Associate

Abby Hunter-Syed

LDV Capital
Former Partner

Meryl Breidbart

LDV Capital
Former Associate

Merritt Jenkins

LDV Capital
2020 Summer Associate

Agenda

To safely feed our growing population while the coronavirus pandemic rages, global warming accelerates, supply chains get strained and the global economy nose dives, we need visual tech solutions.

In this event we will discuss how cameras, sensors and other visual technologies will impact:

• Yield projections

• Plant breeding and phenotyping

• Controlled environment agriculture and vertical farms

• Animal agriculture

• Lab grown food & food processing

• Supply chain traceability and autonomy

• The future of grocery stores, restaurants and food service

• And more…

Schedule

Private Session For Institutional Investors & Family Offices
12:00PM - 1:00PM ET
- Fireside Chat: Om Malik, True Ventures, Partner & Evan Nisselson, LDV Capital discuss investing and visual technology trends.
- LDV Capital Portfolio Presentations

Public Forum:
1:00PM ET Introduction to LDV Capital & LDV Insights Report 2020. Farm to Fridge: Food and Agriculture are Ripe with Visual Technology Opportunities
1:10PM ET AgTech Keynote by Jorge Heraud, CEO & Co-Founder of Blue River Technology (Acquired by John Deere)
1:20PM ET LDV Insights Report Findings on Next-Generation Plant Breeding
1:25PM ET Animal AgTech Keynote by Aidan Connolly, CEO of Cainthus
1:35PM ET LDV Insights Report Findings on Automation in Meat Processing
1:40PM ET LDV Insights Report Findings on New Ingredient Discovery
1:45PM ET GroceryTech Keynote by Lindon Gao, Co-Founder & CEO of Caper.ai
1:55PM ET Q&A

More about our speakers:

Om Malik, Partner at True Ventures: 
Journalist Om Malik founded technology blog Gigaom in 2001. With seed funding from True Ventures, he turned the one-man blog into a media company and research firm. Not long thereafter, Om became a venture partner at True Ventures. In 2014, he graduated to partner at True where he continues to invest in promising networking and internet infrastructure technologies.

Om regularly writes for The New Yorker and provides commentary on tech trends to broadcast channels including Bloomberg West, NPR, and BBC television and radio. Om started writing about tech in the early 1990s at Quick Nikkei News before joining the founding team at Forbes.com. After a short stint at H&Q Asia Pacific as an investment manager, he then returned to the media world as a senior writer for Red Herring and later at Business 2.0.

He published his first book, Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist, in 2003. Born and raised in New Delhi, he is now happily situated in Northern California. He holds a bachelor’s degree from St. Stephen’s College where he graduated with honors. His grandfather once told him, “Do not bank money. Bank people.” This advice remains core to Om as he considers new opportunities.

Jorge Heraud, CEO & Co-Founder of Blue River Technology
Blue River Technology was acquired by Deere & Co in September 2017 and is now run as an independent subsidiary. Jorge has a passion for the intersection of agriculture and high tech that started during high-school summers when he split his time between working at his grandparents' farm and his father's high-tech start-up. Prior to Blue River, Jorge worked at Trimble Navigation for 14 years, heading the Precision Agriculture group and working in automatic guidance, GPS receivers, as well as agricultural technology company acquisitions. His roles at Trimble included Director of Engineering, Director of Business Development and Head of Precision Agriculture. He's been dreaming of moving the resolution of action on the farm to a single row or a single plant since at least 2009. Jorge holds Masters degrees in both Business and Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He lives in Sunnyvale with his wife and two kids.

Aidan Connolly, CEO of Cainthus
Aidan officially joined Cainthus as CEO in January 2019 but is often referred to as the fourth founder given his involvement with the company since its inception. Prior to Cainthus, Aidan held the position of CIO at Alltech. During his 25+ years there he worked with a full range of executive and managerial challenges, including direct experience of greenfield startups, high growth environments, turnaround issues, challenging economic environments and a wide range of political and economic systems. He has leadership experience from strategy to operations to production, developing sales programs and developing cohesive teams that deliver strong results.

Aidan has worked in over 100 countries and speaks five languages. He has worked in political associations, with state and national governments in the US, China, Europe and Brazil, international organizations such as the European Union and the United Nations. Aidan holds a Master’s in International Marketing from the Smurfit School of Business, University College Dublin, Ireland and is the author of the strategic business planning book, ‘2-1-4-3, a Plan for Explosive Business Growth’.

Lindon Gao, Co-Founder & CEO at Caper 

Caper is a New York-based retail technology company, leading the development of an AI-powered self-checkout shopping cart. Their smart carts are found in major grocery stores across the US and Canada. Their goal is to reshape the physical retail landscape and transform the way people shop in physical stores.

Lindon built his first startup in gaming commerce at age 14, and hasn't stopped creating since. In 2020, he was featured on Forbes list “30 Under 30” in the Retail & E-commerce category.

More about the LDV team.

Partners: