Women in Tech Spotlight: Alison Sunstrum
Empowered by Farm Credit Canada
Pivoting is a skill every entrepreneur needs, and needs to be comfortable with. Just ask Alison Sunstrum.
No stranger to reinventing herself, Sunstrum has built a career that started with an accounting certification and has taken her to manager of a multi-million dollar VC fund. She honed her entrepreneurial chops through a decades-long career that merged tech with her agricultural knowledge, always at the forefront of cutting-edge developments that helped build Fortune 500 companies, first through one of the first electronic data interchange projects for a railroad and later helping to create GrowSafe, which became the first company to use radio frequency identification for livestock, now an industry standard.
“I’m not a software developer, but I code and play around with new systems just through a love and an interest in tech,” she says.
In her more than two decades with GrowSafe, Sunstrum became CEO and helped to scale the company globally before divesting the company to a UK private wealth firm in 2019.
After a successful career as an entrepreneur and leader, helping to revolutionize an ag-tech company, Sunstrum decided it was time to retire. There was just one problem:
“I absolutely hated it,” she says with a laugh. It wasn’t long before she shifted gears, going back to university to deepen her tech knowledge and try something new. “One of the great things about making a successful exit is you have that freedom,” she says. She dove deep into blockchain technology and artificial intelligence, “I had a whole lot of fun,” she says.
At the same time, her experience as an entrepreneur had motivated her to improve parts of the system she believed needed improvement.
“I saw a lot of challenges for Canadian founders,” Sunstrum says. One of those challenges was accessing mentors who have driven their company to scale. She joined the Creative Destruction Lab as a mentor in the general tech Calgary Prime stream. Her experience led her to advocate for the creation of an ag-tech stream, which is now in its fourth cohort year. “We’ve had phenomenal success.”
Never one to lose sight of a problem that needs solving, Sunstrum also wanted to help with access to funding for food and agricultural ventures, especially ones that are science and tech based. Knowing she wanted to start a fund, Sunstrum did what she was good at: she began to do everything she could to learn about venture capital and how to successfully raise capital. She began investing as an LP in funds globally, developing her company Conserve-X, which invests in emerging technology in agriculture. Her investment efforts soon led to a partnership with The51, a VC firm that invests in female-led ventures, where she is the general partner for its Food & AgTech Fund that is closing in on raising $50 million by the end of the year.
“My partners are exceptional women, and we’ve built an exceptional team.”
“Alison Sunstrum exemplifies the very best of what venture capital has to offer Canadian agriculture and food. Her vision, innovation, and leadership are an inspiration to us all, serving as a catalyst to inspire and grow female and diverse founders.” said Justine Hendricks, President and CEO at FCC.
“FCC is proud to both invest in the51 Food & AgTech Fund I and support the Canadian Women’s Network because they deliver results with accomplished women like Alison leading the way. The long-term growth potential of women-led businesses has never been stronger, and investment in and support of women and diverse founders is an important success factor for the industry, something both the51 and CWN have recognized and aspired to foster.
I look forward to seeing the industry and female founders continue to benefit from Alison’s passion, and the continued work of the51 and CWN in supporting great ideas, great founders and promising companies to bolster sustainable innovations and transform businesses in agriculture and food.”
Thank you to Farm Credit Canada for empowering this story!
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