Louisville is ideal location for agricultural venture capital

Eleven agriculture-based startups pitched their companies at ReSurfaced in Louisville Thursday night in hopes of winning $50,000 to support their innovative ideas.

Village Capital hosted the venture capital pitch for companies looking to create a more sustainable agricultural economyas one of an ongoing series of events at ReSurfaced, which is a pop-up beer garden, outdoor café and event space.

The companies that made their pitch Thursday are part of Village Capital's accelerator Louisville training program for agriculture-based businesses.

Ross Baird, executive director of Village Capital, said the accelerator program is one of three sessions being held during a four-month period that will culminate in January at a venture forum where the business owners will make a final pitch in hopes of securing $50,000 for their companies.

Baird said the companies that pitched have ideas to "increase the resource efficiency of the agricultural supply chain." That includes ways to make crop production more efficient, innovations related to water or pesticide usage, new irrigation technologies, and inventions related to crop production, aggregation or distribution.

Washington, D.C.-based Village Capital runs 30 accelerator programs in five separate sectors across the globe. Baird said the company bases each sector practice in a city that it thinks is a global leader within that sector. Louisville is the base for its agriculture sector.

"When you think of an entrepreneur, you think of a Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerburg," Baird said. "You don't think of an agriculture-technology, data-management company. But in terms of problems that really matter, this is one that is definitely worth solving.

Braden Lammers covers these beats: Financial services, residential real estate, law, property and casualty insurance, construction, unions, engineers, architects and agriculture.