The story so far
In 2003, farmer Nick Wallace returned to his family farm in Iowa and launched Wallace Farms, transitioning his land toward regenerative practices and selling meat products directly to customers. His business was successful, but he was just one farmer in one county and he felt a calling to take his vision across all the 99 counties in Iowa.
Fast-foward 18 years. Christian Ebersol was coming off of several years investing in startups like Instacart and Away luggage with Comcast Ventures and spending time as an operator at Health IQ leading sales, operations, and marketing teams. He felt a strong pull to work on solutions to the climate crisis and, under the guidance of Michael Yang he joined OV as their team's first Entrepreneur in Residence. After several months exploring the many different sub areas within Climate Tech he identified regenerative agriculture as the most promising yet underinvested solution to climate change. He spent the summer criss crossing the Midwest in a pickup truck and got direct feedback from farmers and consumers on where the opportunities lay.
Together, Nick and Christian saw the greatest opportunity in providing a superior platform for customers to see the difference, demand that difference, and in turn support those farmers as they heal the land. 99 Counties was created to build that platform for consumers to access better and healthier meat products and for farmers to get the support they need to adopt regenerative practices and change agriculture as we know it.
OMERS Ventures invested in 99 Counties in 2022.
