May 31, 2023
Alison Sunstrum is the CEO of CNSRV-X Inc. (Conserve X), a Canadian company developing and investing in emerging technology in agriculture, and a General Partner of The51 Food and AgTech Fund, investing in outliers transforming the business of food and agriculture.
Alison is a Venture Partner, Ag, and LP at Builders VC, a San Francisco/Calgary venture capital fund investing in founders re-imagining large, underinvested, antiquated industries. Alison is a Founding Partner and Fellow in the Ag Stream of the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), Rockies, and the Manufacturing stream, Seattle.
As former CEO/Co-Founder of GrowSafe Systems Ltd., she grew their research and development skunkworks from an Alberta garage to global operations. She received international recognition for science-based innovation, including the Intel award for Innovation, Canada’s Ingenious award, and the AsTech-Dow Sciences award for agricultural science innovation. GrowSafe developed a technology platform that continuously acquired data from individual animals and their environment, providing novel information regarding their health, welfare, and performance. GrowSafe technology improved profitability, and animal well-being, and reduced the environmental impact of livestock production.
Alison holds patents for innovative technology and has presented widely on Big Data, the Internet of Livestock Things, and commercializing early-stage technology ventures. She is a member of the Canadian Council of Innovators, Agri-Food Innovation Council, the Canadian Institute of Corporate Directors, and a former member of Canada’s Agrifood Economic Strategy Table. She is a lifetime member of the American/Canadian Society of Animal Science, the American Society of Biological and Agricultural Engineers, and the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology. Alison is a Director of Ontario Genomics and the newly formed Canadian Council of Biological Engineering and serves as Director, Advisor, and Mentor to several agriculture technology start-ups. In 2021 Alison was recognized as one of Canada’s most influential leaders in agriculture.