Our investment in Foodsteps

24 May 2022

By Lucy Clarke

Investment thesis

Food production currently accounts for around 26% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also the industry that uses the largest amount of fresh water, and is a major driver of diversity loss.
Businesses are under increased pressure to meet Net Zero targets, not just from end consumers but also from shareholders and customers, however carbon accounting across food production is a huge challenge. Existing solutions can take anywhere between three and six months or even longer to perform their impact audit and can cost millions of pounds for large enterprises.
The Foodsteps platform centralises insight into companies’ carbon use, generating reports, uncovering impact and offering recommendations for carbon footprint reduction. It represents an indispensable tool for businesses working towards Net Zero.
Foodsteps’ best-in-class SaaS solution draws on data from over 40,000 farms and 5,000 processes to perform the audit quickly and at scale, giving companies a huge amount of data and actionable insights.
Founder and CEO, Anya Doherty, is a global expert in her field. Foodsteps’ solution is based on proprietary research, undertaken by Anya during her Master’s at the University of Cambridge.

Who is the pioneer

Anya Doherty brings unrivalled expertise to bear on her role as CEO and founder at Foodsteps. Over three years research at the University of Cambridge, she established herself one of a few global experts in the field of food emission calculation. She also co-led the largest experimental trial to date into carbon labelling for food.

Beyond her practical experience, she’s also an accomplished commercial operator. She’s built relationships with key stakeholders across the sector, generated top-of-funnel leads and attracted leading industry figures to work with Foodsteps.

Why us

As a B Corp, Octopus Ventures is interested in backing the people and ideas aiming to build a better tomorrow. Anya represents precisely the kind of founder we seek to support. Her passion, enthusiasm and drive are obvious, and underpinned by a deep and sophisticated understanding of the field.

Foodsteps’ solution promises to positively impact the journey of food businesses around the world as they strive to meet their Net Zero targets. By giving tangible advice to companies on steps they can take to improve sustainability, the Foodsteps platform stands to have a huge environmental and social impact.

As an early-stage company, we hope to support Foodsteps in their next steps, putting our People and Talent team to work in helping the business attract the top talent it needs to grow, and leveraging our operational expertise to help shape the strategy that will take the team to the next level.

We’re delighted to back this pioneering, female-led company — a huge congratulations to Anya and the Foodsteps team.