Astanor Ventures is a Brussels-based impact venture capital firm investing across the agrifood value chain, “from soil and sea to gut”. Founded in 2017 by Eric Archambeau and George Coelho, the firm describes itself as a mission-driven asset manager backing ambitious entrepreneurs whose technology can create systemic change in food and agriculture. It reports €800M of capital raised across its funds, has made more than 50 investments, and employs over 20 professionals across five offices in Europe and the US.
Astanor’s thesis starts from a stark observation: the agrifood system sits at the root of many of the planet’s biggest problems, from climate change to biodiversity loss and diet-related ill health. The firm targets that root cause by backing founders with disruptive, scalable solutions — and it goes further than capital alone. Hands-on sustainability expertise is embedded through the whole investment lifecycle: ESG and impact are assessed at due diligence through six guiding principles and tracked via six impact KPIs, ranging from 213,000 metric tons of CO2e avoided to 16,000 farmers financed annually and 400,000+ plant-days analysed. In 2024, Astanor co-founded the Impact Valuation Hub with industry players to advance monetary valuation of impact. It is a signatory of the PRI, a member of Invest Europe, and its first fund, Good Harvest Ventures I, is an Article 9 investment fund.
The firm invests from seed to growth stage through two complementary strategies: Astanor Venture for early-stage companies and Astanor Growth for later, larger tickets. Its sweet spot is mission-driven startups whose products are “nature-positive” by design — Archambeau describes the bar as “impact unit economics”, where each unit sold is itself impactful, so scale and impact move together. Target sectors span the full agrifood system: regenerative agriculture, precision farming, food production and processing, the blue ocean economy and the broader bioeconomy. Geographically, the firm invests mainly across Europe and North America.
Astanor’s portfolio reads as a who’s who of agrifood innovation. Notable names include Ÿnsect, the French insect-farming pioneer; Notpla, the UK maker of seaweed-based packaging; Apeel Sciences, fighting food waste with plant-derived coatings; Berlin vertical-farming pioneer Infarm; Belgian crop-protection company Aphea.Bio; ProducePay, the fresh-produce marketplace and fintech platform; French ag crowdfunder MiiMOSA; French sustainable-microcapsule maker Calyxia; Italian genetic-testing startup Hyris; and MagrowTech, whose magnetic spray technology cuts chemical use on farms. Its second venture fund closed at €360M in 2023 with a focus on the sustainable bioeconomy.
The partnership is led by co-founder and partner Eric Archambeau alongside co-founder George Coelho, with Hendrik Van Asbroeck as Managing Partner and veteran food-industry leader Filip Kegels — a former Danone executive — serving as Operational Partner, guiding portfolio companies on scaling. Astanor runs no public accelerator or credits programme; its “programme” is embedded in the portfolio relationship — hands-on impact measurement, an operational-resilience roadmap with clear milestones, talent guidance and expert introductions, plus regular ecosystem gatherings that bring founders, farmers, scientists and policymakers together.
Why it matters for founders
For founders building in agrifood, Astanor is a specialist worth approaching early: it understands the sector’s long, biology-driven timelines, invests patiently across stages from seed to growth, and brings genuine sustainability firepower rather than just capital. But the bar is explicit — your business must be impactful at the unit level, not merely “agrifoodtech”. If it is, Astanor wants to hear from you.