Barry Adams

Barry M. Adams is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Prairie Crest Capital, a Des Moines, Iowa venture capital firm he launched in October 2016 alongside co-founder Mark White. The firm was created explicitly to close what its founders describe as a Midwestern venture-capital gap — providing "connected capital" (funding plus access to talent, customers, and technology resources) to promising agriculture- and technology-focused startups so they can scale without relocating to the coasts. Prairie Crest set out to raise an initial fund targeted at roughly $100 million and concentrates on early-stage AgTech.

Adams is a long-time veteran of the financial-services and alternative-investments industry. Immediately before Prairie Crest, he and White worked together at Gooi Global, Inc. (also branded DomiKnow), where Adams served as Chief Operating Officer and Head of Investor Relations (2015–2016) and White was CEO. Earlier in his career, Adams was a Principal/Partner at ColBridge Capital Management (ColBridge Partners), a Partner at Grant Park Capital Partners, LLC (a start-up hedge fund-of-funds), and held asset-management and alternative-investment roles at U.S. Trust Co. and Bankers Trust Co., where he was responsible for delivering asset management, alternative investments, and capital-market solutions. He began his finance career at Private Capital Investing, a subsidiary of Chemical Bank, N.A. Together, Adams and White cite more than 60 years of combined experience in marketing, operations, and finance.

Adams earned a Bachelor of Arts (Economics) from Northwestern University and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School.

• Invests in early- to mid-stage companies (pre-seed through early Series A) building transformational agriculture and technology innovation.
• Core sector is AgTech, extending into food & ag tech, enterprise applications, and high tech.
• Geography-driven thesis: the founders argue the Midwest lacks large professional venture firms, leaving strong local companies underfunded; Prairie Crest aims to keep those companies in the region while co-investing with coastal and other investors.
• Emphasizes "connected capital" — co-founder Mark White's framing that "professional venture capital firms provide what I like to call 'connected capital,'" pairing money with access to technology development, customers, and talent.
• Takes a hands-on, operational role: helping with sales calls, strategic-partner and customer introductions, management recruiting, and commercialization strategy.