Rob Leclerc, Phd

Deeptech and deep science VC

📍 San Francisco, California, United States🔄 Updated September 2026💼 29 investments📅 9 years investing🗓 Last invested Jun 2021𝕏 @upgrade_to_unlock
VC🌍 United States20+ investments
29
Total investments
8
Early stage
8
Mid stage
5
Late stage
9y
Years active

Portfolio

26 investments · sorted by recency
All investments
Early stage
Mid stage
Late stage
Investor
2020
We firmly believe it should be easy to find the protein you need in the meals you want. That’s why we are always going for gold when it comes to deliciously plant-based meals. Whether you are choosing a meatless life or a meatless Monday, we make food for your lifestyle: easy meals for everyday life that are totally, completely plant-based. Small changes can have a big impact – cutting out meat even one day a week is good for your health, improves animal welfare, and supports a more sustainable world. Whether you’re looking for ideas for a #MeatlessMonday or a meatless life, we’ve got you covered with delicious and convenient, grab-and-go options for your busy life. Our Product Lineup Includes: - The Alpha Burrito - The Alpha Breakfast Burrito - The Alpha Pot Pie - The Alpha Nugget - The Alpha Pizza - The Alpha Tamale - The Alpha Burger - The Alpha Crumble - The Alpha Patty - Alpha Chik'n Strips - Alpha Crumble
Investor
2020
SIMULATEs mission is to upgrade the world to a positive food system.
Investor
2020
Integriculture Inc., a cellular agriculture platform company, develops sustainable protein, namely cell-based meat, and offers its production capability and technology to variety of clients wanting to develop products involving cell culture. Cell-based meat carries high hope as the holy grail to sustainable protein, for which $2T market is at stake. However, the production cost has been prohibitively high. Our patented “CulNet System” cultures cells 4~5 orders of magnitude less expensive to enable us to market cell-based meat at competitive prices. The system requires no externally added growth factors or serum, making it cleaner and safer compared to conventional meat, and even products by other cellular agriculture companies. The system in principle cultures any cells and produce anything produced by living things. Its astounding versatility makes it ideal for a general platform for clients wanting to produce food, cosmetics, supplements, functional ingredients, pharmaceuticals, and any other biological and agricultural products.
Investor
2020
Jüsto is working to improve the lives of Latin Americans by providing them with a new generation of supermarkets. Jüsto designs, develops, and deploys the technology to support different processes within the company, from assortment and inventory management, to operations and logistics. Jüstos business model is fully online—without physical stores—and delivers directly to the customer’s home. Jüsto has developed into an emerging leader in the transformation of the digitally-enabled online grocery experience, powered by its cutting-edge technology and seamless purchasing platform. Jüsto saves its customers time and money. It also guarantees 100% fulfillment of orders, as well as a commitment to deliver the freshest fruits, vegetables, meats, and seafood. Jüsto offers a vast catalogue of products, both from top brands and local producers, all at competitive prices. Jüsto is building a more just, fairer and sustainable grocery model, empowering small and medium producers by giving them access to sell their products online. It also supports suppliers in establishing distribution processes and negotiating fair trade agreements for all parties. Jüsto was founded in 2019 by CEO Ricardo Weder and is present in Mexico and Brazil.
Investor
2020
Founded in 2019, Atomo is a Seattle-based, food-tech startup improving coffee taste and confronting the climate crisis by reinventing coffee for tomorrow. They have reverse-engineered the coffee bean—producing outstanding espresso that tastes great and does good.
Investor
2020
Kula Bio champions sustainable, biological solutions for modern agriculture. We energize nitrogen-fixing microbes to produce organic fertilizer. By rewiring the energy flow from sun to soil, were disrupting synthetic fertilizer to eliminate the division between affordable practices and stewardship of our land, sea and air. For career opportunities, please visit https://www.kulabio.com/careers
Investor
2020
Black Sheep Foods is a plant-based meat company using revolutionary technology and analytical chemistry to create a delicious lamb alternative that is better for the environment and your health.
Investor
2020
Bear Flag Robotics is developing autonomous farming technology. Growers can orchestrate a fleet of autonomous equipment directly from their smartphone or tablet, allowing them to realize productivity gains and reduce their operational expenses.
Investor
Oct 2019
Nobell Foods is creating cheese and other dairy products from plant-derived dairy proteins for the 99% of people who are unwilling to compromise on taste and price. Worldwide dairy production accounts for 40% of global livestock emissions. In the US, the dairy industry is responsible for 2% of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. And a growing chunk of that dairy consumption is coming from cheese. Our team is made up of passionate scientists, explorers, and storytellers on a mission to radically change the way we make food, so it’s better for you, the animals and the planet. We are backed by Bill Gates’ climate fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and Robert Downey Jr.s footprint coalition.
Investor
2019
Fieldin’s smart farm control center gives specialty crop growers unrivaled visibility across all field operations. Our user-friendly dashboard seamlessly reports a full range of field data points (monitoring tractors, implements, operators and in-field sensors) to provide managers with actionable data that improves production, transparency and efficiency in the field. From our award-winning smart spraying module and scouting app, to our innovative harvest tracking dashboard, Fieldin’s smart tools have helped transform some of the world’s largest growers into hyper-efficient, data-driven operations. Contact us today to learn how Fieldin’s platform can be customized to fit your operation, or visit us at www.fieldin.com.
late stageFarming
Investor
2019
IGS is a multi-award-winning international agritech innovator delivering vertical farming solutions to customers across the world. Our approach and technological design are based upon a culture of continuous innovation, a refusal to accept conventional thinking and brilliant, simple design.   We blend our engineering, crop science and agronomy skills to build the best technology to allow our customers to succeed. Importantly, we are not commercial growers. Our success is driven by enabling our customers to grow tasty, nutritious, additive-free produce for the consumer using economically viable and environmentally sustainable methods. Our Growth Towers come in 6m, 9m and 12m variants and can grow a wide variety of crops including microgreens, herbs, salad leaves, brassicas, roots, fruits and botanicals (including edible flowers). Search for open vacancies: www.intelligentgrowthsolutions.com/careers/current-vacancies Take a peek at our glassdoor: www.glassdoor.co.uk/Overview/Working-at-Intelligent-Growth-Solutions-EI_IE1971867.11,39.htm
late stageFarming
Investor
2019
Wefarm is the world’s largest knowledge network and marketplace for small-scale farmers. Using Wefarm they can share and access vital information, products and services. Wefarm is free for farmers to use. Small-scale agriculture is the biggest industry on earth, with more than a billion farmers globally supplying 80% of the world's food and commodities, yet remaining digitally unconnected. No one has built a platform for this… until Wefarm. Since our launch in 2015 we have grown to have over 2.5 million farmers using Wefarm. Wefarm has raised investment from some of the world’s leading VCs, including True Ventures in Silicon Valley, and looking to add to our world class global team. For more information, visit https://about.wefarm.com or view our platform on https://wefarm.com, follow Wefarm on Twitter @wefarm and connect with Wefarm on LinkedIn.
Investor
2019
TRAY® is a the only INDEPENDENT Point of Sale solution for multi unit full service and fast casual restaurant chains. As a growing number of companies seek to introduce a cloud-native POS into their operations to improve their customer experience and reduce operating costs, TRAY is the only enterprise-class system that offers a full turnkey solution that can operate on legacy hardware. Unlike other POS companies, TRAY was built with the Cloud at its core, not an afterthought. TRAY uses a modern backend combined with an inexpensive Android front end solution. Thanks to our scalable, secure architecture, our solution is flexible, scalable, and low-cost, and is trusted by major restaurant operators such as Dine Brands Global, IHOP, etc.
Investor
2019
Fieldin’s smart farm control center gives specialty crop growers unrivaled visibility across all field operations. Our user-friendly dashboard seamlessly reports a full range of field data points (monitoring tractors, implements, operators and in-field sensors) to provide managers with actionable data that improves production, transparency and efficiency in the field. From our award-winning smart spraying module and scouting app, to our innovative harvest tracking dashboard, Fieldin’s smart tools have helped transform some of the world’s largest growers into hyper-efficient, data-driven operations. Contact us today to learn how Fieldin’s platform can be customized to fit your operation, or visit us at www.fieldin.com.
late stageFarming
Show all 26 investments ↓
Experience · 35 entries
All (35)
Investments (29)
Founder (1)
2021
2020
Investor
2020
We firmly believe it should be easy to find the protein you need in the meals you want. That’s why we are always going for gold when it comes to deliciously plant-based meals. Whether you are choosing a meatless life or a meatless Monday, we make food for your lifestyle: easy meals for everyday life that are totally, completely plant-based. Small changes can have a big impact – cutting out meat even one day a week is good for your health, improves animal welfare, and supports a more sustainable world. Whether you’re looking for ideas for a #MeatlessMonday or a meatless life, we’ve got you covered with delicious and convenient, grab-and-go options for your busy life. Our Product Lineup Includes: - The Alpha Burrito - The Alpha Breakfast Burrito - The Alpha Pot Pie - The Alpha Nugget - The Alpha Pizza - The Alpha Tamale - The Alpha Burger - The Alpha Crumble - The Alpha Patty - Alpha Chik'n Strips - Alpha Crumble
Investor
2020
SIMULATEs mission is to upgrade the world to a positive food system.
Investor
2020
Integriculture Inc., a cellular agriculture platform company, develops sustainable protein, namely cell-based meat, and offers its production capability and technology to variety of clients wanting to develop products involving cell culture. Cell-based meat carries high hope as the holy grail to sustainable protein, for which $2T market is at stake. However, the production cost has been prohibitively high. Our patented “CulNet System” cultures cells 4~5 orders of magnitude less expensive to enable us to market cell-based meat at competitive prices. The system requires no externally added growth factors or serum, making it cleaner and safer compared to conventional meat, and even products by other cellular agriculture companies. The system in principle cultures any cells and produce anything produced by living things. Its astounding versatility makes it ideal for a general platform for clients wanting to produce food, cosmetics, supplements, functional ingredients, pharmaceuticals, and any other biological and agricultural products.
Investor
2020
Jüsto is working to improve the lives of Latin Americans by providing them with a new generation of supermarkets. Jüsto designs, develops, and deploys the technology to support different processes within the company, from assortment and inventory management, to operations and logistics. Jüstos business model is fully online—without physical stores—and delivers directly to the customer’s home. Jüsto has developed into an emerging leader in the transformation of the digitally-enabled online grocery experience, powered by its cutting-edge technology and seamless purchasing platform. Jüsto saves its customers time and money. It also guarantees 100% fulfillment of orders, as well as a commitment to deliver the freshest fruits, vegetables, meats, and seafood. Jüsto offers a vast catalogue of products, both from top brands and local producers, all at competitive prices. Jüsto is building a more just, fairer and sustainable grocery model, empowering small and medium producers by giving them access to sell their products online. It also supports suppliers in establishing distribution processes and negotiating fair trade agreements for all parties. Jüsto was founded in 2019 by CEO Ricardo Weder and is present in Mexico and Brazil.
Show all 35 entries ↓
Investment activity
2017–2021 · 29 investments
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