Lisa Feria of Stray Dog Capital on impact investing and animal-free food tech entrepreneurship

I think we forget sometimes because we look at Impossible, we look at Beyond, that they’re the tip of the spear, but there’s so much work and so much opportunity out there… We need to get to all the categories… Seafood in general is very, very underserved. And so getting access to amazing talented entrepreneurs who are going to focus on seafood… there’s a huge opportunity there, because that is such a level of high need. And there’s other categories like that, but I think… cheap, plant-based replacements specifically is an area of opportunity, and seafood is as well. There’s focus on burgers and hot dogs and products like that, especially in beef, and not enough focus yet on many of the other species that we need to get to.
- Lisa Feria

Investing in animal-free food technology startups offers opportunities to disrupt animal agriculture while making a profit. But is high counterfactual impact not irreconcilable with good returns on investment? And what kinds of entrepreneurs and companies seem most promising?

Lisa Feria is the CEO of Stray Dog Capital, a group that invests in high-tech plant-based food and cellular agriculture startups. She also helped to found GlassWall Syndicate, a group of investors who collaborate to support animal-free food technology startups.

Topics discussed in the episode:

• How Stray Dog Capital evaluates which companies are likely to deliver good returns on investment and the skills that entrepreneurs need to succeed (2:25)
• How companies can make high-quality projections and estimates about their chances of success and expected market share (19:45)
• How Stray Dog Capital evaluates the impact of companies and how this affects their investments (24:35)
• Why Beyond Meat was such a success story for its investors and why IPOs (initial public offerings) are the “gold standard” for maximising return on investment (30:55)
• Why Stray Dog Capital focuses on early stage investments, how crowded the space of impact investing in animal-free food tech is, and the counterfactual impact of investments (33:35)
• The trade-off between counterfactual impact and return on investment (55:05)
• Why Lisa is optimistic about continued growth and opportunities for animal-free food technology (1:02:22)
• How Stray Dog Capital collaborates with other investors through GlassWall Syndicate (1:05:48)
• The markets and geographies that Stray Dog Capital is most interested in, and the importance of pre-existing demand for animal-free foods (1:07:54)
• Broad vs. animal focus in terms of the impact and strategy of startups (1:12:10)
• The expected impact (and challenges) of cellular agriculture / cultured meat companies compared to plant-based companies (1:16:27)
• Projected timelines for when cellular agriculture products will become cost-competitive with conventional animal products, and how investors deal with this uncertainty (1:24:15)
• Why more animal-free food tech entrepreneurs should focus on neglected product categories like seafood and chicken replacements (1:28:45)
• Career preparation for working at impact investment groups and as entrepreneurs at animal-free food tech startups (1:36:58)

Resources discussed in the episode are available at https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/podcast

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