Introduction

Big Idea Ventures is a new alternative protein fund based in Singapore and New York. Founded in 2019
Q1, it is raising US$50M to make 80 – 100 pre-seed to Series A investments over 10 years. Managing
Partner Andrew Ive previously ran Food-X, a US$250M multi stage fund that wrote $50k cheques and
received over 350 applications in the last cohort of Oct 2015. Managing Partner Christian Cadeo led APAC
expansion of JUST (formerly Hampton Creek Foods), one of earliest alternative protein unicorns.

The BIV thesis is to take founding teams with a clear vision and clear product roadmap, write them a
cheque of US$125K, put them through a 5 month in-house accelerator program (compared to industry
standard of 3 months), and use the fund’s strategic advisor and partner networks to facilitate fast and
scalable execution of its portfolio companies. BIV then selects promising graduates for up to $US2M follow
on investment reserves pro rata allocation in future rounds. Roughly speaking, 20% / 60% / 20% is
allocated for seed investments / follow on investments / ecosystem investment respectively. Their first
investment is with Shiok Meats, a cell-based crustacean company founded by two Singaporean ladies.

BIV seems to have gained solid traction for sourcing capital as well
as deals. In March, BIV secured an initial closing with two
institutional investors - Tyson Foods and Temasek. Like many Big
Food companies, Tyson Ventures helps its parent company spot
and ultimately buy out innovative food startups for a variety of
reasons. Regarding deal flow, Cadeo shared that BIV has already
received over 80 applications for its US cohort, despite BIV’s status
as a nascent fund. Crucially, BIV claims to differentiate against
similar funds (eg. Lever VC) by through strong domain expertise in
operations & co-packing, drawing from the expertise and operating
experience of its team and partner network.

Value Add
Figure 1 Tyson ranks 2nd in global meat
1. Do you segment the landscape differently from your producer market
competitors, and how so? Where are the cash cows and future
stars? Understand that your fund looks at three key areas: plant-based products, ecosystem plays, and
cultured meats (Cellular agriculture)
2. Do you have a playbook to teach startups how to control costs? Understand that food innovation is
fairly asset intensive.
3. How is Andrew doing things differently in BIV compared to Food-X? Writing larger initial checks?

Portfolio
1. Tell us about Shiok Meats, your first investment. What is their vision and roadmap?
2. Do you have exit destinations in mind for them already? Is Tyson Foods interested?
3. Do you have a plan for managing conflicts between your portfolio companies and their late stage
strategic investors, e.g. when the latter forces the former to go through a pivot?

LPs
1. Do you place more rigour in certain areas when vetting companies for follow up versus initial
investment? Can we share DD notes when considering follow up investments?
2. Do you have a minimum capital commitment to access co-investments opportunities?
3. What do you look for in LPs?