The Business and Investment pillar at the 8th AVF Summit takes place on Wednesday, 9th October and will highlight pathways for growth and innovation in vertical farming by examining successful business models and investment strategies. We will start in this pillar  with the question “Why are investors attracted to food tech and what do they expect?”  Investors will share their experience as well as their goals as entrepreneurs.

We will also learn how a new VF system was developed to finally reach commercial production levels and how important it was to find the right partners.

In our first AVF Startup challenge we provide a stage for 10 entrepreneurs to pitch and get valuable feedback from experts. Our high-level jury comes from science, industry and investment and will choose the two best pitches for the award.

The Business and Investment pillar begins in the morning with a panel discussion:

• Marc Oshima, CEO of Oshima Good Food and Co-Founder of AeroFarms
• Dr. David Meszaros, CEO and Founder, SMARTKAS
• Carsten Puschmann, CEO, Carsten Puschmann GmbH

will be discussing the Investor’s Vision: Motivations and Strategies for Shaping the Future of Food Tech. 

The panel will be followed, after the break, by a presentation by Marc Stift, Project Director Fraunhofer IME, Aachen.

After lunch we have the pitches from the 10 finalists in the Start-Up Challenge, with the winner announced later the same afternoon. Our distinguished jury is made up of:

• Prof. Silvana Nicola, Università di Torino
• Prof. Joel Cuello, Association for Vertical Farming e.V.
• Carsten Puschmann, CEO, Carsten Puschmann GmbH

And we round off the day with an exciting Roundtable discussion including:

• Edugarden gUG
• Association for Vertical Farming e.V. 
• ISIFARMER SL
• WELT DA DRAUSSEN

explaining more about the Erasmus+ Project, Empowering Education in Vertical Farming through Gamification: Insights from the EU-Funded GAMING GARDEN Project.

If you haven’t already bought your ticket for VertiFarm 2024 then you can do so here.

For all of you attending VertiFarm and the 8th AVF Summit we look forward to welcoming you and meeting you in person from 8-10 October, 2024 in Messe Dortmund.