Sara Menker

214 trillion. Not dollars. Not seconds. Calories.

That’s the deficit Sara Menker saw coming.

Born and raised in Ethiopia, Sara saw famine not as a headline but as lived reality.

Years later, as a rising star at Morgan Stanley, she was trading commodities by day… and obsessing over global food security by night.

In 2014, she did something radical: she quit her job and launched Gro Intelligence.

The mission? Use artificial intelligence to track and predict agricultural trends, climate shifts, and supply chain disruptions before they spiral into disaster.

Gro crunched billions of data points from weather, crop yields, market prices, and even satellite imagery.

Modeling over 1,000 scenarios a day.

The platform’s insights helped policymakers avert famines, guided insurers through climate chaos, and gave agribusinesses the clarity they didn’t even know they needed.

Her 2017 TED Talk (A global food crisis may be less than a decade away) went viral.

She warned of a 214 trillion calorie deficit by 2030, painting a picture of systemic collapse unless the world acted fast.

By 2021, Sara was everywhere: on the TIME100 list, advising the UN, and named a Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst.

Gro was valued at $1B+ and backed by Intel Capital.

But even game-changers aren’t immune to the startup grind.

In 2024, after raising $125M+ in funding, Gro Intelligence hit a financial wall.

Layoffs.

Leadership shakeups.

Sara was removed as CEO.

Months later, the company shut down.

Still, Sara’s vision didn’t fail.

It forced a new conversation.

One that fused climate, food, and data in a way the world had never seen.

Gro may be gone, but its blueprint lives on.