This Week’s Top Three Investments: Agribusiness; Sustainable food; and brand protection

Family office buys huge agribusiness group

More details here

Sustainable food group attracts multiple principal investment office funds

Benson Hill, a crop improvement company, has raised additional growth capital from 13 investors including a number of family/principal investment groups. 

The Missouri-based group raised $150 million in a Series D round, with backing from the Grosvenor family’s UK-based Wheatsheaf Group, Nat Simons’ Prelude Ventures, and the family-owned commodities group Louis Dreyfus Company. Prelude has backed the group in earlier rounds, and Tao Capital Partners, owned by Nicholas Pritzker has also backed the group before. 

Benson Hill has so far raised close to $300 million. 

Brand protection venture gets family office backing 

Authentic Vision, a brand protection and authentication platform based in Austria, has raised funds from a number of family offices in a Series B round. 

Backing came from Dolby Family Ventures, the San Francisco family office of Dave Dolby, and Custos Privatstiftung, the investment office of Austrian billionaire Wolfgang Leitner. Altogether Authentic raised $5 million from the round; Dolby Family Ventures backed the group, which was founded in 2012, six years ago.