Agrifood and Carbon - Key Global Challenges & The Role of Data Science
Breakthroughs in Agrifood technology are occurring worldwide, with new chemical processing and biotech innovations combining with automation and AI to give traditionally expensive solutions a chance at profitability. These new solutions are also more sustainable, gaining the attention of investors supporting the latest climate initiatives.
Join us in-person alongside representatives from Lowercarbon Capital, Unovis Asset Management, Idemitsu Americas, and Climax Foods in a roundtable discussion to discuss recent investments, challenges and market opportunities in Agrifood being fostered within Silicon Valley.
This event will be moderated by Nobu Kumagai, Founding Managing Partner, Wildcard Incubator and is hosted at Port Labs in Oakland, CA.
Thank you to these organizations and sponsors for discussing these market opportunities with local Bay Area startup founders and angel investors!
Agenda
5:30p Doors Open
6:00p Mix and Mingle
6:30p Panelist Intros from Nobu Kumagai, Wildcard Incubator
6:45p Discussion Kick-off
7:00p Split into Roundtable Group Discussion
7:30p Closing Remarks and Networking
8:30p Doors Close
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About our Guest Speakers
Duncan Carlson is an associate at Lowercarbon Capital. By their own bio, Lowercarbon Capital backs kickass companies that make real money slashing CO2 emissions, sucking carbon out of the sky, and buying us time to unf**k the planet. Before joining Lowercarbon, Duncan was Engineering Project Manager at Waste Management Inc in Oregon and Pawnee Waste LLC in Colorado.
Dan Altschuler is managing partner of Unovis Asset Management, working closely with companies to strategize and tackle the challenges they face across the entire food value chain from identifying market opportunities and R&D for new products to launching into markets, growing distribution, scaling manufacturing and expanding to international markets.
Yamato Adachi is a Senior Manager at Idemitsu Americas Holdings, the venture capital arm of Idemitsu Group located in Silicon Valley. In his current role, he spearheads the delivery and support of Idemitsu's decarbonization strategy, with a focus on developing and implementing carbon-neutral initiatives and climate-aligned offerings. Prior to joining Idemitsu, he held positions at JPMorgan Chase and Deloitte.
**ADDED GUEST** Oliver Zahn is US/German theoretical astrophysicist, data scientist, and entrepreneur, best known for developing algorithms for astrophysical data analysis and widely cited discoveries of phenomena in the history of the Universe. He is also known for his more recent work as founder and CEO of Climax Foods, a California-based biotechnology company modeling dairy and other animal products directly from plant ingredients. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Zahn directed UC Berkeley's Center for Cosmological Physics alongside George Smoot and Saul Perlmutter and was Head of Data Science at Google
Moderator
Nobu Kumagai, Founding Managing Partner, Wildcard Incubator
Nobu is the founding managing partner at Wildcard Incubator, a Tokyo and Silicon Valley-based corporate-startup business accelerator with industrial track record and focuses in Agrifood, Greentech and wellness. He also currently serves as guest editorial contributor to CNET Japan and NewsPicks - one of Japan’s largest online business media. Previously he worked for one of Japan’s largest VC funds and a decade in investment banking in Tokyo and New York. He was also part of the co-founding team at a food service startup in Japan. Nobu earned his MBA from Cornell University.
**ADDED SPONSOR**
Cleantech Open has trained over 3,750 entrepreneurs from 2,000 early-stage clean technology startups through its annual business accelerator. A majority of CTO alumni surveyed have survived the merciless technology startup “valley of death” and gone on to raise over $1.8 billion equity, and in recent cohorts, 50% of founder CEOs self-identified as BIPOC and/or women.
The Venue
Port Labs is a workshop space in Oakland and a quick 20min BART ride from SF. Port Labs fosters collaboration among entrepreneurs, creatives, and tech experts to advance sustainable technology solutions.