Fellowship Spotlight: E2JDJ
Stephanie Dorsey and Corey Jones have a lot in common. They both come from entrepreneurial families, they attended and met at Harvard Law School, have a deep passion for the science and technology of food production, as well as a belief in the power of food to achieve positive health and environmental outcomes.
As co-managing partners of early stage VC Fund E2JDJ, this team is fueling the movement to modernize the creation of food. As Jones states, “our investments are a bet that 21st century solutions will replace 18th century solutions, and we will move from agriculture to labriculture.”
These laser-focused emerging managers started the VC Include Fellowship for BIPOC First-Time Fund Managers in February 2021, at which time they had not yet raised money for their fund. By the end of the year and the program, they successfully closed on half of their $50MM fund.
Let’s take a look at how they are powering what they call the second agricultural revolution.
Agriculture to Labriculture
The E2JDJ team invests at the intersection of food science, ag-tech, and sustainability.
To understand their Why, you simply have to look at the new and emerging technologies that are disrupting our current agricultural system – a system that most agree is far too unpredictable, economically inefficient, polluting, and land and water intensive.
Dorsey and Jones plan on investing in “Agriculture 2.0” in the following ways:
Plant-Based Food Science + Technology Businesses
42% of global consumers identify as “flexitarians” or people who are actively eating less animal-based products. This consumer trend is increasing over time with 54% of Gen Z’s now avoiding meat and animal-based products, while only 34% of baby boomers doing the same.
Cellular Agriculture
Defined as the cultivation of any cells on a bio-production platform, cellular agriculture is an industrial biotechnology used to make food and materials. The production of cellular products is a sustainable and economic alternative to traditional agriculture and is emerging as a major disruptor in food production.
Health-Tech
Consumers are taking more interest and ownership than ever before in their health and wellbeing. Synthetic biology is enabling the production of new nutraceuticals and functional food products, which are ever increasing in popularity due to their potential health benefits.
Strategy for Portfolio Companies
The E2JDJ duo has already deployed capital to companies in the plant-based food science space, in a fermentation company that harvests industrial waste emissions to create microbial proteins, and in a data-driven functional food company.
“We work with our portfolio companies by helping them enhance their distribution and sales channels,” says Dorsey, “ and as we’ve talked to a lot of food entrepreneurs in the space, we found those to be the two main pain points that they face.”
They also connect their tech and science portfolio companies with their university partners to help give them needed R&D support, resources, and contacts.
How the VCI Fellowship Helped E2JDJ
Stephanie Dorsey sees time management as a major challenge for first time fund managers. “As a first-time fund, what we are essentially doing is everything,” she says with a smile, “so we have our hat on for deal sourcing, fund raising, setting up our back office, and working on administration.“
“VCI has really helped us with that,” interjects Corey Jones, “by giving us the building blocks to put in place a really strong foundation to grow in the future.”
Dorsey adds, “But I would say the main benefit wasn’t about the information itself, but the candidness of it all. It was really information that you can’t Google but was from individuals lived experience, and that’s more than trying to find a blog or book, but really learning from their wisdom.”
“That kind of practical experience and advise from leading figures in the space, both from an experiential point of view as well as from a connection point of view, was just amazing and something that we couldn’t have gotten anywhere else” Jones agrees.
All of us at VC Include believe in the powerhouse partnership behind E2JDJ. We look forward to watching them become changemakers in the food industry as they help bring about the agricultural revolution that our planet so desperately needs.
