Announcing Fund III and the Bread & Butter Innovation Circle
We are thrilled to share the news of our new Fund III, a $27M vehicle to invest in seed stage startups who are improving lives and transforming their industries. We’re investing in the core ‘bread and butter’ sectors of the modern economy moving forward, addressing how we feed ourselves, care for one another, and what the future of work looks like. We continue to focus on foodtech, healthtech, and enterprise SaaS as our core verticals from this fund.
While we invest all across the country (and can invest internationally as well), we are proud of our home base and bullish on our roots here in the “bread and butter” state of Minnesota. Our strategy is to invest in the best companies in the world and lean into our homefield advantage to support them; Minnesota is home to the highest number of Fortune 500 companies per capita in any metro in the United States. Today we’re also announcing the Bread & Butter Innovation Circle, made up of 17 Minnesota-based companies committed to innovation who work with B&B to continually evolve their work with the startup and growth companies. This is an effort to connect the leading corporations within the industries they invest to the emerging tech startups in those verticals. Participating companies include 3M, Allianz, Bremer Bank, Ecolab, C.H. Robinson, CHS, General Mills, Hormel, Mayo Clinic, Schwan’s Company, Securian Financial, Stella, U.S. Bank, Xcel Energy and more. This Innovation Circle is part of the larger effort led by Head of Platform Stephanie Rich to connect and support the portfolio at scale through partnerships, perks, education efforts, and community.
Since 2017, we have invested in 47 companies that have created more than 650 new jobs from diverse geographies and backgrounds. Across our first two funds, 46% of companies are led by female founders and 63% include a founder who is a person of color. We fundamentally believe that investing in diverse teams leads to better financial outcomes, and it’s core to our DNA to push for more inclusivity at every layer of the stack — from our LPs to our team to the pipeline and portfolio, to helping our companies recruit and retain diverse talent across their teams and boards.” Fund III is backed by a talented group of organizations, entrepreneurs, and investors including Toyota Ventures, Chris and Crystal Sacca of Lowercase Capital, F.R. Bigelow Foundation, Revolution Ventures, Charitarian Foundation, Dunn Family Office, Stella, Tonkawa, Bernick’s, ATCO, Jill Gwaltney, Amy Langer, Daren Cotter, and more.
We’re reinforcing today the core values we put forth when we came together as a team:
- Seek out and celebrate vision, look for bold ideas and support those who want to change the world.
- Be direct — encourage transparency, act with decisiveness and lead with an honest steadiness.
- Act with empathy and humility by calling on our own experiences, staying down-to-earth and remaining accessible.
- Emphasize performance and data-driven decision-making and goals while maintaining a proactive, continuous improvement-based approach to business.
- Build and prioritize the many members of the Bread & Butter family. Celebrate teamwork, support quality of life, work with people with value and have fun.
- Value and support community by consistently giving first, championing our home and practicing gratitude.
We are immensely grateful to the founders we are fortunate to work with, our LP investors who are backing us from all corners of the globe, our ecosystem and corporate partners, and of course our family and friends.
Learn more at www.breadandbutterventures.com or book office hours to chat with us www.breadandbutterventures.com/community.
