Key takeaway
In Part 2, Todd Crowley sits down with Mark Gustowski and Timothy Hui of Mandalay Venture Partners to ask the question most investors avoid: why is capital chasing other sectors while the people who actually grow food go unfunded?
The conversation moves from diagnosis to deployment, covering plant protein formats built for SE Asia’s infrastructure constraints, functional fibre entering commercial trials with major food manufacturers, and why top-quartile agrifood VC returns remain one of the most overlooked opportunities in the market.
The hardest debate inside Mandalay is timing and whether private capital moves before sovereign funds and strategic buyers take the best opportunities off the table.
Australia produces some of the cleanest, highest-quality food on the planet. But less than two percent of global venture capital flows into agriculture and food technology, a sector that represents roughly twelve to thirteen percent of Australian GDP. That gap is not a minor inefficiency. It is a structural vulnerability.
In Part 2 of this conversation, Todd Crowley continues with Mark Gustowski and Timothy Hui from Mandalay Venture Partners to examine exactly where that capital needs to go and what happens when it doesn’t arrive in time.
That timing question is the spine of the episode. Agri-food VC exits cluster in the $200 million to $600 million range. The category consistently delivers top-quartile returns when managed with domain expertise. But internal rate of return is a function of time, not just outcome and getting the commercialisation cycle, company readiness, and acquirer appetite to align simultaneously is where the real work happens.
If you caught Part 1, you know the problem. Now, the evidence.
For deeper briefs on agri-food capability and Indo-Pacific food security, find the analysis inside Vaxa Bureau.
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