Impact Investing

The GRAS Board of Directors is comprised of a number of successful local business owners and community leaders, with an entrepreneurial spirit that found us seeking opportunities beyond our community mini grants, philanthropic giving and scholarships. Through our commitment to impact investing, we were looking to create long-term sustainability in the Ag and Environmental sectors, and fuel innovation right here in our backyard. Grand River Ag Society (GRAS), in partnership with RH Accelerator Inc. are working together and co-investing in support of local early-stage innovative companies in the agriculture, food, and cleantech industries.

The collaborative agreement between RH Accelerator and GRAS provides a nurturing environment for early-stage businesses such as Intelliculture, by combining patient capital with coaching, mentorship, and business expertise.

RH Accelerator Inc. is a privately held company that makes long-term value-adding hands-on investments in early-stage innovative companies. RHA helps these promising companies much like the YCombinator model, leveraging our founders & partners’ business experience, skills, extensive networks, financial resources in a 12-month business building program.

Grand River Ag Society (GRAS) and RH Accelerator (RHA) have made their first collaborative Impact Investment in IntelliCulture, an innovative early-stage company making precision agriculture accessible to all.

“We at GRAS are thrilled to share we have made our first, of hopefully many, investments under our recently announced Impact Investing model.” shares Deborah Whale, Vice President of GRAS and chair of the Philanthropic and Impact Investment committee. “Working with RH Accelerator we were introduced to the founders of IntelliCulture, a group of talented young innovators from Waterloo who came together through their passion for innovation and turned that into a company with excellent future potential.”

Katie Giddy is joined by Cole Powers, co-founder of IntelliCulture, Joe Dales, founder of RH Accelerator, and Deborah Whale, Vice President of Grand River Agriculture Society, and Chair of the Philanthropic and Impact Investment Committee.