Founded in 2014 to invest in entrepreneurs who are committed to a healthier and more sustainable food system, the S2G Ventures team is now one of the most active investors in food and agriculture.

With the success of S2G’s portfolio, our work and model expanded in 2021 to become the direct investment team of Builders Vision, Lukas Walton’s impact platform dedicated to building a more humane and healthy planet.

Our Journey

Lukas Walton’s passion for nature, health, and food started at the young age of 3 when he was diagnosed with a rare cancer. After rounds of chemotherapy and treatment, Lukas’ mother fed him an all-natural diet that had a profound impact on curing his disease. Food literally helped save his life.

After his recovery from cancer, Lukas watched his mother and father start Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center, which included donating his childhood home and garden in National City, a diverse community outside of San Diego. Today, the center serves as an interactive, indoor-outdoor classroom that connects and motivates youth, adults, and families through organic gardening, environmental stewardship, and nutrition education, inspiring them to be healthy and active.

Through these experiences a seed was planted with Lukas, giving him a lifelong sense of humility and respect for the power of food and how it is grown.

In 2014, Lukas started S2G Ventures with a vision to invest in entrepreneurs building solutions for a healthier and more sustainable food system. The founding team began with a focus on food and agriculture, working out of a former warehouse garage in Chicago’s West Loop.

The resulting S2G Ventures’ strategy was based on a systems investing approach aimed at holistically rebuilding the food system. It is rooted in a deep understanding of the complex processes, infrastructure and organizations involved at each stage of the value chain and focuses on the entire supply chain from how products are grown, to the ingredients in our food, to how consumer behaviors are changing.

“In those ear­ly days, we worked togeth­er to build a strat­e­gy that would res­onate with entre­pre­neurs. We want­ed to prove there can be direct align­ment between pos­i­tive envi­ron­men­tal, social, and eco­nom­ic out­comes in today’s food system.”

- Matthew Walker, Managing Director of S2G Ventures

With over $1 billion in capital, the S2G team has invested in over 70 portfolio companies across all stages of the supply chain, including sweetgreen, Beyond Meat, Benson Hill, MycoTechnologies, and GreenLight Biosciences. S2G is now one of the most active multi-stage venture funds focused on food and agriculture investments in the world.

“We are con­struct­ing a port­fo­lio that reflects big­ger envi­ron­men­tal and finan­cial sys­tem impact and syn­er­gies, giv­ing us indus­try insights oth­ers may not see.”

- Sanjeev Krishnan, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of S2G Ventures

Beyond financing, the team partners with their portfolio company leaders by providing mentorship and resources to help them succeed in the market. The S2G team believes that entrepreneurs are critical catalysts for change, and you have to take risks – and sometimes fail – to learn and eventually increase market confidence in these important innovations.

“It’s about lift­ing up our port­fo­lio lead­ers and their com­pa­nies to help affect change across their respec­tive indus­tries. We see a wave of cli­mate inno­va­tion, and we hope oth­er investors and strate­gic part­ners will work with us to dri­ve these solu­tions to scale.”

- Aaron Rudberg, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of S2G Ventures

The team challenges themselves to learn new approaches to building companies, find ways to support our entrepreneurs and build an ecosystem of like- minded industry leaders.

“Every day is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn. Keep­ing a beginner’s mind­set is crit­i­cal if we are going to help dri­ve bet­ter envi­ron­men­tal and health outcomes.”

- Chuck Templeton, Managing Director of S2G Ventures

Building on S2G’s success in food and agriculture, Lukas has steadily increased his financial commitments to their work - first with a $100 million Oceans and Seafood fund in 2020 and then with a $300 million climate and energy fund in 2021. Lukas named S2G Ventures the direct investment team of Builders Vision in 2022.

With the new funds in oceans and seafood, climate and energy, and real assets,

the collective investment strategies are all aligned around the principle that successful businesses must remain at the intersection of where purpose meets profit.

And as the S2G Ventures’ team continues to grow its work as a part of the Builders Vision impact platform, they are steadfastly focused on building a culture of inclusion, collaboration, humility, and entrepreneurship.