Agri-startups and their regional embeddedness: A qualitative network analysis on the German ‘Silicon Valley of Agriculture’

Agriculture significantly contributes to global environmental change, highlighting the urgent need for sustainability-oriented innovations and transitions in today's agri-food systems. In this context, agri-startups emerge as promising actors, yet their innovation processes—particularly the influence of their regional embeddedness—remain under-researched. In such contexts, a combination of the concepts of regional innovation systems (RIS) and entrepreneurial ecosystems (EE) seems particularly promising not least to explore the dynamics of structure and agency. This study investigates how RIS structures dominated by incumbent actors of the intensive agri-food regime, enables or constrains agri-startups’ innovation and the (co-)creation and realization of opportunities. Using the five proximity dimensions—geographical, cognitive, social, institutional, and organizational—in combination with a qualitative network analysis, we find that strong social and institutional ties among incumbents can limit integration of new actors' knowledge. Agri-startups rely on intermediaries for network access, but this often shapes their innovations and transformative potential of (regional) opportunities, reflecting the power dynamics within an established agricultural RIS.