# Jim Sayre

> Jim Sayre is a Series C investor at Proterra Investment Partners backing Energy. See 1 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug…

- Type: Angel Investor
- Fund: [Proterra Investment Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/proterra-investment-partners)
- Location: San Francisco Bay Area, United States
- Total investments: 1
- Last investment: Jun 2010
- Lead investor: 0%
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-sayre-472804a/

Jim Sayre is a Series C investor at Proterra Investment Partners in San Francisco Bay Area focused on Energy and Fossil Fuels. Jim founded Cargill Ventures in 2000 and was appointed president of the group overseeing Cargill’s venture investments. The Cargill Ventures group was subsequently transferred to Black River Asset Management, where Jim is now serving as a senior managing director.He currently serves on the boards of Aspectrics, Ecosynthetix, GuardianEdge,MarkMonitor and Virent.He also oversees investments in Dust Networks, Redpoint Bio and Fortiva. Jim’s past investments include DemandTec (NASDAQ:DMAN), iTrade Networks (acquired by KKR/Accel) and Ecovation (acquired by EcoLab).Before starting at Cargill Ventures, he was director of mergers and acquisitions for Cargill, where he led global acquisition and divestitures exceeding $5 billion in value between 1995 and 2000.Prior to that, Jim worked at Deloitte Consulting as a senior manager and worked in various positions in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.Jim earned a BA in economics from the University of California at Davis and an MBA from Harvard University.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Jim Sayre: work email, personal email, work phone, personal phone and socials. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-email/jim-sayre?utm_source=investor_profile

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Energy | 1 | 100% |
| Fossil Fuels | 1 | 100% |
| Renewable Energy | 1 | 100% |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Virent Energy Systems | Virent Energy Systems, Inc. operates as an energy technology company that enables the renewable replacement of fossil fuels. Its BioForming platform technology renewably produces transportation fuels, fuel gases, and various chemicals from fossil fuels. Virent Energy Systems, Inc. has a strategic industrial collaboration with Royal Dutch Shell plc.The company was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin. | $46.4M | Series C | Jun 08, 2010 |  |

1 of 1 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Honda Motor](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/honda-automobiles) — VC Fund, 1 deal together
- [Shell](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/royal-dutch-shell) — VC Fund, 1 deal together

## About Proterra Investment Partners

VC Fund · Minneapolis, United States

Proterra Investment Partners is an alternative investment manager focused on private equity investments in the natural resource sectors of agriculture, food, and metals and mining. Proterra has offices in Minneapolis, London, Mumbai, Singapore, Shanghai, and Sydney.Proterra launched as a standalone investment advisor and private equity fundmanager for the Black River Asset Management private equity funds (the “Funds”) on January 1, 2016. The Funds spun out from Black River Asset Management, a wholly-owned, independently managed subsidiary of Cargill, Inc. Proterra’s investment strategies are influenced by the senior leadership team’s longstanding tenure with Cargill – a global leader in providing food, agriculture, financial, and industrial products and services. Although no longer an owner, Cargill maintains its relationship with Proterra as a committed limited partner to the Funds.

2 contacts available at Proterra Investment Partners.

| Name | Title | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Jim Sayre | Founding Partner | — |
| Tai LIN | Managing Partner of Proterra Asia | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/tai-tai-1820 |

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## FAQ

### What does Jim Sayre invest in?

Jim Sayre invests primarily in Energy, Fossil Fuels and Renewable Energy startups, most often at Series C stage. Most of the 1 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### How do I contact Jim Sayre?

Public channels for Jim Sayre include LinkedIn. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.

### When did Jim Sayre last invest?

The most recent investment recorded for Jim Sayre closed in Jun 2010. Shizune tracks 1 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.

### Is Shizune's investor data accurate?

Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.

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