Agriculture is in Matt Helms’ DNA. For seven generations, his family has operated a farm in Belleville.
Growing up, Helms said he developed a passion for plants as he spent time on the Belleville farm. Today, he carries on the family’s tradition of agriculture – in several ways.
Helms is managing director of BioGenerator Ventures, the investment arm of local innovation hub BioSTL. At BioGenerator Ventures, Helms is involved in its investment and development of startups in the food and agriculture technology space. He joined BioGenerator in 2022 after having been chief commercial officer at St. Louis-based agriculture startup NewLeaf Symbiotics. That followed an 18-year tenure at Monsanto.
Helms is also an entrepreneur himself: He and his wife, Michelle, in 2017 launched their own popcorn company, Ella & Ollie Popcorn. The company sources popcorn from corn hybrids grown on the Helms’ family farm. It also sells oils and spices that can be paired with the product.
Ella & Ollie sells its popcorn at a variety of retailers, and it can also be found at local movie theaters, including Skyview Drive-In in Belleville. In addition to Helms and his wife, Ella & Ollie includes an employee who works in sales. Helms declined to share the company's annual revenue.
How did you get your start in agriculture? My first job was with a competitor of Monsanto, which is now Syngenta. I was a sales rep in Nebraska for three years. It was a great territory. I actually left that because I wanted to do something outside of agriculture and I felt like the industry was changing. There was a lot of M&A. I could see peers of mine that were in their 40s, and they felt like, "Oh, I'm stuck here in ag." I would continually hear that around that wave of consolidation and I thought, "Gosh, I grew up on a farm. I studied plant and soil sciences. I don't wanna be like that." I actually got a job at Deloitte in a consulting group of all things. This is a funny story: I faxed my resume to my now wife who was working in human resource and on paper she rejected me. She’s like, "We're not hiring farmers." I interviewed with the Deloitte Kansas City office, they gave me an offer, and I ended up getting a job and met my wife there.
Why did you leave Deloitte for Monsanto? I learned a lot, but I realized consulting wasn't my passion. I really started thinking about, "What is my passion?" It actually came back to plants, not just agriculture, but plants and crops. I applied for a job at Monsanto and a position opened up and the North America marketing lead was looking to hire somebody. I worked 18 years at Monsanto running different businesses. I ran the North America Crop Protection Business, and did the same globally the last five years.
How’s your role with BioGenerator going? I absolutely love it. What I love is the diversity of companies that are coming in. (It’s using) learnings that I've been able to evolve, going from big agriculture to a startup that was five to six years old when I joined to now trying to help startups at the very earliest stage, which is so critical. I learned a lot from the NewLeaf experience of how critical it is to find answers, proof of concept, and find the right people. That’s what's fun and exciting.
What led to the creation of the popcorn business? I was really looking for something that could be a new business model opportunity for our family farm and legacy. I firmly believe that if future generations would have an interest (in farming), having more diversification and something that connects with business owners and consumers could be potentially more exciting. My wife and I visited about two or three different business concepts and it actually got pretty simple: Popcorn is something that we love. It's like a fun little treat for us to make it and do different combinations. The other piece is, frankly, we looked at the St. Louis area and nobody was really doing a locally grown quality product that could provide experiences to people. That's how we started. We researched different hybrids on the internet and grew our very first 2 acres that year, and then it's just really kind of grown from there.
How many acres is it today? It ranges between 50 and 100 acres. This year it'll be closer to a hundred acres, maybe even a little bit more.
What do you like to do for fun? We love playing with our dogs and walking our dogs. We like to go out to Innsbrook and unwind. We got a little place out there to use. We do Airbnb, but it's a family retreat and we have lots of fun times out there hiking. Last summer, we created a top 10 custard places in St. Louis. We created a little scorecard and we’d go around and sample all summer and then we figure out who won. It was just an absolute blast. It was Ted Drewes and Eckert's that ended up tying for the No. 1 spot. We decided this year we're gonna do toasted ravioli.
More about Matt Helms
Title: Managing director at BioGenerator Ventures and co-owner of Ella & Ollie Popcorn
Residence: Webster Groves
Age: 48
Family: Wife, Michelle; daughter, Lily Ella
Education: Bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; an EMBA from Washington University
