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Slow Money 157<br />
Zentay put together a group <strong>of</strong> eight angel investors—all<br />
urbanites like himself who care about the environment and protecting<br />
their upstate foodshed—who invested $830,000 in equity<br />
capital. The investors created a separate limited liability company,<br />
Blossom Farms, LLC, that will own the land and processing facilities,<br />
which will be leased back to Milk Thistle on favorable terms.<br />
The LLC owns a noncontrolling percent <strong>of</strong> Milk Thistle, and in<br />
turn Dante and Kristin Hesse have a stake in Blossom Farms—so<br />
goals are aligned. In addition, Milk Thistle and its investors lined<br />
up close to $1 million in debt, including a seller- fi nanced mortgage<br />
to buy the land, which they plan to convert to a bank loan.<br />
A deal that size—a total <strong>of</strong> $1.65 million—for a small agricultural<br />
operation is unheard <strong>of</strong> in the Hudson Valley. “I think<br />
it’s going to be groundbreaking,” says Hesse. “I’m hoping it<br />
sets a precedent and that we can be agents <strong>of</strong> change.” ( Just<br />
to drive the point home, Freidman was planning to take out<br />
a “tombstone”—the nickname for the ads that fi rms take out when<br />
they’ve closed a major fi nancing deal—in the Wall Street Journal.)<br />
With the additional processing capacity, Hesse plans to work with<br />
other area farmers who want to process their own milk and dairy<br />
products. “We want to help other local businesses,” he says.<br />
A central motivating force for Zentay and his fellow angel<br />
investors was the ability to make an investment in something<br />
that not only provides a fi nancial return, but also refl ects their<br />
values. “I was impressed by Dante’s vision for the company and<br />
his balance <strong>of</strong> what’s good for the animals and environment<br />
and people and what’s pr<strong>of</strong>i table,” says Zentay. “With so many<br />
companies, there is a tension between those things. In the organic<br />
space, those values are aligned. I’ve never been in a deal that the<br />
investors are so passionate about.”<br />
For now, much <strong>of</strong> the investment in small- scale food and<br />
agriculture is confi ned to affl uent investors such as Zentay and<br />
Lindstrom. We still don’t have the infrastructure and investment<br />
vehicles to facilitate the fl ow <strong>of</strong> mainstream capital to these types<br />
<strong>of</strong> businesses. But that is exactly the problem that Slow Money has<br />
set out to tackle. It has a long way to go still, but the grassroots<br />
army is swelling.