Eric Johnson

Eric Johnson is a Venture Partner at Tabard Venture Capital, a Boston-founded (2017) early-stage venture firm focused on food and agriculture technology. He joined the firm to serve as its "eyes and ears" in the Mid-West, sourcing and supporting deals from the region while the firm's General Partner, Ryan D. Teksten, and fellow Venture Partner Sergey Plotnikov cover Boston and Seattle, respectively. Tabard typically writes angel-style checks as individuals and will pool capital as a team via SPVs when a deal warrants it.

Eric's primary career has been in marketing strategy and digital transformation rather than full-time investing. He has served as Global Digital Marketing & Strategy Lead for 3M's Industrial Business Group, where he led marketing transformation, digital media, user experience, content, search, and social media strategy. His résumé spans several major technology and consumer brands: he held brand engagement strategy roles at Optum and brand strategy roles tied to Pinterest, worked in digital marketing across General Media brands, and earlier served as a strategist and metrics analyst at Google, advising large clients on search and interactive marketing. (Aggregator data also associates him with director-level roles connected to 3M Ventures and a senior director role at Xcel Energy.)

Eric is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and lives in Minneapolis with his wife and family. He also advises early-stage startups outside of his formal Tabard role, bringing a go-to-market, brand, and digital-strategy lens to the firm's predominantly technical, deep-tech AgTech portfolio.

• Invests through Tabard's core thesis: backing food and agriculture technology companies that "improve agricultural productivity, nutrition, health, sustainability, and supply chain efficiency."
• Targets the intersection of remote sensing, enterprise IT, Internet of Things, Big Data, and Artificial Intelligence applied to farming and the food supply chain.
• Stage focus is early — pre-seed through Series A — with angel/seed checks written individually and larger participation pooled as an SPV.
• Sector breadth beyond pure AgTech includes software/productivity tools, FoodTech (indoor growing, fresh produce), and selectively fintech, insurtech, and mortgage technology.
• As the Mid-West partner, Eric adds value where Tabard's technical founders are typically thinnest — brand, digital marketing, go-to-market, and customer-experience strategy.