Mark Kahn

Mark Kahn is the Managing Partner at Omnivore, an agriculture and food system-focused venture capital firm based in India. He also serves as a Director for multiple Omnivore-backed startups, including Skymet, Eruvaka, and MITRA.

He holds a BA (Honors) degree from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Startup Journey & Career Growth

Mark Kahn started his career in 2001 as a Strategy Consultant at PFM. Later in 2006, he became the Strategy Manager at Syngenta, a leading agriculture company helping improve global food security by helping millions of farmers make better use of existing resources. In 2008, he joined Godrej Agrovet Limited as an Executive Vice President (Strategy & Business Development), where he handled corporate strategy, M&A, R&D, and new business incubation.

In 2010, Mark co-founded Omnivore with Jinesh Shah, an impact venture fund that invests in Indian startups developing breakthrough technologies for food, agriculture, and the rural economy. Omnivore raised ₹9.35 billion (approximately $130 million) across two funds, ₹2.6 billion in Omnivore Partners India Capital I and ₹7.29 billion in Omnivore Partners India Fund II. 

Since 2011, Omnivore has funded 24 startups across agritech sub-sectors, including DeHaat, Clover, Bijak, Stellapps Technologies, AgNext, Intello Labs and others. At present Omnivore assists about one crore farmers through its products and services.

He became the Co-Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Task Force on Agri Startups and a member of the Governing Council of the Maharashtra State Innovation Society. He also serves as the Co-Chair of the HBS Impact Investing Alumni Group.

Podcast

Mark Kahn, Managing Partner at Omnivore talks about the major market segments Agritech is segregated into, the factors that are fueling the growth of the industry, and how COVID has contributed to the sector’s growth with Prashanth Prakash and Anand Daniel of Accel, in the INSIGHTS series podcast.

You can listen to the episode here - Future of Agritech: The evolution of Agritech in India | SeedToScale

Quote

“We are the world’s second largest sugar producer, we are effectively taking our scarcest natural resource and converting it into diabetes.”

-       Mark Kahn, Managing Partner at Omnivore

Reference

·  (3) Mark Kahn | LinkedIn

·  Mark Kahn - Managing Partner @ Omnivore - Crunchbase Person Profile

·  Mark Kahn - (omnivore.vc)

·  Mark Kahn | NASSCOM

·  Omnivore - Funding, Financials, Valuation & Investors (crunchbase.com)

·  How VC fund Omnivore redefined agritech startup financing, bringing it to the mainstream (yourstory.com)