Superorganism revealed its $25.9 million debut fund, focused on improving the environment by investing in innovative technologies that address the drivers of biodiversity loss — and the venture capital (VC) firm’s managing partners are not afraid to get their hands dirty in the process.
Co-founders and managing directors, Tom Quigley and Kevin Webb, formed Superoganism nearly four years ago, emerging from stealth in 2023 and blending the former’s experience with conservation and start-up technology and the latter’s 15 years of VC investing.
Superorganism officially closed its debut fund late last year, with the support of AMB Holdings, Builders Vision, Cisco Foundation, Stray, Understorey Ventures, and Wedgetail, and investors Jeff Jordan, Mark Tercek, and Sven and Kristin Lindblad.
Superorganism’s investment thesis focuses on three key themes: extinction drivers, climate and biodiversity, and enabling technology.
“Our aim is to support venture-scale solutions that can work at a global scale — that will be able to reduce the drivers of biodiversity loss ... and increase the ways in which we can protect, preserve, expand, and restore species and ecosystems across the planet,” Quigley elaborated.
Inside Superorganism’s portfolio: Funga, Foray Biosciences, more
The VC firm has already invested in 20 pre-seed and seed companies across the tech spectrum, including invasive species management provider Inversa and ocean robotics start-up Ulysses. The VC firm has also pledged to give 10% of its profits to conservation efforts.
Funga is part of Superorganism’s debut fund and is restoring the soil microbiome of lumber production lands by introducing native mycorrhizal fungi back to the soils, Quigley explained. These native mycorrhizal fungi develop “a symbiotic relationship” with the trees, but lumber production does not allow enough time for the fungal network to grow back, he added.
“There is a clear industry benefit to the timber and to the landowners who are able to get much more wood off the same land and with a very simple inoculated seedling rather than a complicated spray across a whole 1,000-acre forest. But there are also very strong carbon benefits to be able to grow a forest faster,” Quigley elaborated.
Additionally, Superorganism invested in biotech and AI start-up Foray, which recently secured its first commercial partner with West Coast Chestnut, as AgTechNavigator previously reported.
“There is not really a roadmap for companies that are building in a nature-positive way. That is part of what we really love — getting our hands dirty and solving those first-of-their-kind challenges."
Kevin Webb, co-founder and managing director at Superorganism
Foray’s technology can not only create new chestnut varieties but also bring back extinct plant species, which is important for promoting biodiversity, Webb noted.
Foray is “a pitch-perfect example of an enabling technology where we see a lot of different applications, but the biodiversity use case is really interesting. We have also talked with [the founder] about working on bringing species back from being threatened, or even endangered or extinct. And, we have cellular matter available, so if we could do something like that, it would be potentially a really efficient way to bring back some populations relatively quickly,” Webb elaborated.
‘We have dry powder and are ready to invest it’
Superorganism will deploy capital from its debut fund throughout this year, with the goal of hitting 35 portfolio companies for its first fund, Quigley explained.
“We have dry powder and are ready to invest it. So, we are going to be working really closely with our founders, and putting a lot of that money to work, and we are also going to be focused heavily on building the ecosystem as well,” Quigley elaborated.
Amid sluggish VC funding in agtech, start-up founders are returning to business fundamentals, while also ensuring that they address real-world problems, Webb noted. For their part, Webb and Quigley are not afraid to get their hands dirty to help these start-ups solve issues related to biodiversity loss.
“Some of the interesting stuff for us on the biodiversity front is we often are in the weeds with our founders’ solving problems,” Webb said. “There is not really a roadmap for companies that are building in a nature-positive way. That is part of what we really love — getting our hands dirty and solving those first-of-their-kind challenges.”
