Beanstalk: Drought Venture Studio - Innovator & CoFounder EOI

Opportunity for

• Researchers, agribusiness professionals, farmers, and entrepreneurs with ideas and IP for new drought resilience ventures.

Opportunity description

Industry challenge

Australia has built a world-class agricultural industry in the driest-inhabited continent. This hard-won knowledge is relevant to the world as droughts become more frequent and severe. Australia already invests in the knowledge and R&D that informs drought and climate-resilient agriculture.

Our Drought Venture Studio is a new model in drought resilience for commercialising this knowledge and taking new products and services to market for farmers and supply chains.

Current opportunity

The Drought Venture Studio is now recruiting Innovators and Co-Founders to take part in our inaugural cohort.

Innovators are participants with ideas and intellectual property (IP) that can underpin new drought resilience products and services for Australian farmers.

Co-Founders are experienced leaders with commercial, startup, or industry expertise that will join and help to scale each newly created venture for 12 months.

Selected participants can receive up to $250,000 of support, and participation is free of cost.

Opportunity background

The Drought Venture Studio is being launched by Beanstalk Ventures with funding by the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund. It is the world’s first Venture Studio focused on drought resilience.

The Drought Venture Studio will select almost 100 researchers, farmers, entrepreneurs, or corporate innovators to undertake a 90-day program of early-stage venture creation.

From this initial intake, eight successful ventures will receive up to one year of support from a dedicated team of Venture Builders, and be matched with an experienced Co-Founder for commercialisation and launch.

The Drought Venture Studio will connect new ventures to a network of trial partners, customers, and investors from around Australia.

Potential other applications

The current cohort of the Drought Venture Studio is exclusively focused on addressing the highest priority drought-related challenges for Australian farmers and agrifood businesses.