Bread & Butter Ventures – an early-stage venture firm based in the bread and butter state of Minnesota, announced the closing of its fourth fund with a new $40 million vehicle. And their latest fund – which has already begun making investments – targets innovative seed-stage tech companies across North America that are shaping the future of food technology, digital health, and enterprise SaaS. Bread & Butter Ventures has invested in 66 companies across these sectors via their first three funds since 2017.
Bread & Butter Ventures Fund IV combines leading institutional investors such as Allina Health System, Bernick’s, Fifth Third Bank, F.R. Bigelow Foundation, MSP Equity Fund, Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, Stella, etc. And the firm’s dedication to reinforcing its investment thesis is exemplified by the Bread & Butter Innovation Circle.
The Bread & Butter Innovation Circle includes Minnesota-based companies committed to innovation who work with Bread & Butter to evolve their work with startups and the startup ecosystem continually. And the private group for Minnesota business leaders helps to foster innovation and connections between industry titans and emerging startups in their sectors. Participating companies include 3M, Augeo, Cargill, C.H. Robinson, Ecolab, General Mills, Hennepin Healthcare, Mayo Clinic, Minnesota Twins, Schwan’s, Securian Financial, Stella, Target, U.S. Bank, and more.
In the first three funds, the Bread & Butter team made investments into companies including Hungry, Delfina, River Health, Clean Crop Technologies and Fulcrum. The team has started deploying out of the new fund and has already made investments into companies across its core sectors including Tradeverifyd, SocialCrowd, Chiyo and VoicecareAI.
KEY QUOTES:
“Our thesis is rooted in the Minnesota homefield advantage – being based at the epicenter of global industries of the food system, the healthcare industry, and the highest density of Fortune 500 companies per capita in the nation. We invest across a broad geographic footprint from and then leverage our deep local expertise and corporate network to help companies commercialize and scale more quickly.”
– Mary Grove, Managing Partner of Bread & Butter Ventures
“Our team brings a unique blend of backgrounds – my experience starting and building three companies and understanding both exit and failure firsthand, combined with Mary’s experience building and scaling for 14 years at Google, and Stephanie’s background as both a startup operator and journalist give us the ability to roll up our sleeves and support our portfolio. We’re really excited to deploy this new capital into entrepreneurs building companies that change the world.”
– Brett Brohl, Managing Partner of Bread & Butter
