Simon Newstead

Backing impact in Asia Pacific's food, agri & climate sectors. GP at Better Bite Ventures. Co-founder at Asia Climate Hub 🌱

📍 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia🔄 Updated September 2026💼 44 investments📅 12 years investing🗓 Last invested May 2025𝕏 @upgrade_to_unlock
VC🌍 Australia20+ investments
44
Total investments
24
Early stage
10
Mid stage
1
Late stage
12y
Years active

Portfolio

42 investments · sorted by recency
All investments
Early stage
Mid stage
Late stage
Investor
May 2025
Bovotica is developing synbiotic technology to reduce methane emissions from cattle while simultaneously delivering production efficiency.
Investor
Feb 2025
Greenitio is a sustainable materials development company. Our team combines computer simulations and green chemistry to design and synthesize bio-based, biodegradable alternatives to intentionally added microplastics and other petroleum-based ingredients in products with high environmental impact. Not so fun fact: the amount of microplastics that gets invisibly released to the environment from these three sectors can recreate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch every 2 years. We are envisioning a future where this sad reality ceases to exist.
Investor
Jul 2024
Rainstick is an Australian startup working on bioelectrically enhanced seeds for bigger, faster, more sustainable crops. Rainstick combines indigenous wisdom and advances in bioelectrics to tailor seeds to needs
early stageFarming
Investor
Jul 2024
Our Missions: - Encourage adoption of sustainable products and technologies among agropreneurs - Build professional knowledge, skills and competence in agropreneurs - Build a circular bio-based economy for agriculture and horticulture
Investor
Jun 2024
We are an Australian biotech startup with a mission to grow algae as an economical and scalable feedstock for diverse applications. From plastics to proteins, and industrial feedstocks to textiles, our technology has broad potential. By making algae-based alternatives more cost-effective than their fossil fuel-derived equivalents, we can simultaneously grow our economy and protect our planet.
Investor
May 2024
Carbonaught is addressing the interlinked challenges of global food security and accelerating climate change by delivering large scale, permanent carbon removal while building productive, climate resilient soils that boost waterway health and biodiversity outcomes.
Investor
Apr 2024
Singapore-based biotechnology company reinventing fats and oils production to accelerate decarbonization across personal care, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and food.
Investor
Apr 2024
AgriG8 is a Agri-FinTech platform, making it attractive for lenders to invest in climate-resilient farming. We do this through: 1. A farmer engagement app that makes it easy for farmers to farm sustainably and log their actions. 2. A lender platform that gives predictive forecasts for loan origination and credit assurance, built off aggregated data from the app and satellite data. 3. Using our founder’s 14 years of experience in the rice fields of Southeast Asia, along with the knowledge of some of the best climate and agriculture scientists worldwide, to continuously refine and strengthen our predictive crop and credit scoring systems Were always keen to speak to you if youd like to join us on our mission! Visit www.agrig8.com/careers to find out more
Investor
Dec 2023
Conry Tech is reinventing air conditioning to make comfort sustainable. Conry Tech is a climate tech hardware manufacturer which has invented a revolutionary system that enables buildings to electrify, decarbonise, slash emissions, improve the comfort and health of its occupants, and which enables the clean energy transition. Conry Tech believe that energy conservation and energy efficiency need to be the top priorities in making built environment more sustainable. Air conditioning takes 60% of a buildings power, and yet AC systems are still basically the same as they’ve been for 100 years, and this must change if comfort is to become sustainable. This company is founded by Ron Conry, the award-winning inventor of the Turbocor compressor (the most significant technological breakthrough in the HVAC industry in over 40 years), and by Sam Ringwaldt, who has been at the forefront of sustainability and efficiency in the HVAC industry globally for over 20 years. The technologies invented and brought to market by Ron and Sam previously are now dominant globally, and have reduced HVAC systems power consumption by over 50%, radically changing the HVAC industry worldwide. However despite these achievements, they were previously constrained by how HVAC has been done for 100 years, and so this time they took a blank page and invented and patented an entirely new approach, and are bringing to this new technology to the market as Conry Tech. Conry Tech is Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia.
Investor
Oct 2023
Prefer makes more affordable and sustainable food & beverages, starting with coffee.
Investor
Sep 2023
We focus on the industrialization and implementation of strategies and materials that will reduce global industrial carbon dioxide emissions. With years of engineering and geoscience experience, we are working to build a low carbon future.
Investor
Jun 2023
What we do: Developing designer fats for the alternative protein industry We believe fat is the key to unlocking the alt. protein industrys potential. Because in order to replicate traditional meat, alternative protein needs alternative fats - fats that are just as high quality, healthy and tasty as the proteins they accompany.. ..and thats exactly what we are developing here at Fattastic Technologies!
Investor
Mar 2023
At Allium Bio, were creating better ingredients, for better products, for people and the planet. Our secret? Were co-culturing microalgae and mycelium to leverage the strengths of both.
Investor
Mar 2023
The world’s demand for seafood is expected to more than double by 2050 & as of today, the demand for seafood already outstrips the spotty supply causing prices to spike making it unaffordable to the masses. This is where cultivated or lab grown seafood comes into picture. Cultivated meat is real meat grown directly from animal cells. The process of making cultivated meat is similar to brewing beer, but instead of growing yeast or microbes, animal cells are grown. The process starts by taking a small cell sample from live animals such as say prawns or shrimp. From there, these cells are put in a clean and controlled environment and are fed with essential nutrients that they need to replicate naturally. In essence, the conditions that naturally exist inside an animals body are created. To put it in a simple sentence, it is meat without the perilous slaughter. Founded in 2021, Mumbai & Pune based startup Klever Meat is in the process of redefining the way we see and consume seafood. Both the co founders of Klever Meat, CA Nithin Shetty & Dr Swapnil Kamble met during the Indian Smart Protein Challenge 2021 organized by the Good Food Institute & discovered that inspite of their vast differences in technical backgrounds, both shared a common vision towards solving this grave problem of developing sustainable ways of producing seafood. This very synergy led them to win the Indian Smart Protein Challenge 2021 organised by the Good Food Institute (pioneer in alternative protein research across the globe) amongst more than 750 participants across the country. Currently, we have a research setup in Pune where we are working towards developing our own scaffolds & cell lines right now as we are planning to have our PoC of Klever Prawns & Klever Shrimp ready by the second half of 2023.
Show all 42 investments ↓
Experience · 52 entries
All (52)
Investments (44)
Founder (7)
2025
Investor
May 2025
Bovotica is developing synbiotic technology to reduce methane emissions from cattle while simultaneously delivering production efficiency.
Investor
Feb 2025
Greenitio is a sustainable materials development company. Our team combines computer simulations and green chemistry to design and synthesize bio-based, biodegradable alternatives to intentionally added microplastics and other petroleum-based ingredients in products with high environmental impact. Not so fun fact: the amount of microplastics that gets invisibly released to the environment from these three sectors can recreate the Great Pacific Garbage Patch every 2 years. We are envisioning a future where this sad reality ceases to exist.
2024
Investor
Jul 2024
Rainstick is an Australian startup working on bioelectrically enhanced seeds for bigger, faster, more sustainable crops. Rainstick combines indigenous wisdom and advances in bioelectrics to tailor seeds to needs
early stageFarming
Investor
Jul 2024
Our Missions: - Encourage adoption of sustainable products and technologies among agropreneurs - Build professional knowledge, skills and competence in agropreneurs - Build a circular bio-based economy for agriculture and horticulture
Investor
Jun 2024
We are an Australian biotech startup with a mission to grow algae as an economical and scalable feedstock for diverse applications. From plastics to proteins, and industrial feedstocks to textiles, our technology has broad potential. By making algae-based alternatives more cost-effective than their fossil fuel-derived equivalents, we can simultaneously grow our economy and protect our planet.
Show all 52 entries ↓
Investment activity
2014–2025 · 44 investments
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