Tallinn-based eAgronom, an agtech startup that helps farmers generate additional revenue streams, improve soil quality, and access better financing, announced on Tuesday, June 27, that it has secured $5.5M (approximately €5M) in a fresh round of funding.
The investment came from Icos Capital, Soulmates Ventures and SmartCap Green Fund. Enterprise Estonia also provided eAgronom with a special grant to aid in the creation and innovation of its products.
The SmartCap Green Fund investment was made possible by the resources of the European Union’s recovery strategy, NextGenerationEU.
Michal Sikyta, Investment Manager of Soulmates Ventures, says, “The well-experienced team at eAgronom delivers a complex data-driven solution that combines three business streams into one platform, empowering farmers to leverage sustainable agriculture practices.”
“Based on that, farmers’ income and food quality are increasing leaving behind undegraded soil without the excessive use of fertilisers. We are delighted to support eAgronom on their journey in tackling critical challenges and becoming a global leader in the agtech market.”
About eAgronom
eAgronom was founded in 2016 by the son of farmer and entrepreneur Robin Saluoks, computer scientist Stenver Jerkku and business veteran Kristjan Luha. The company’s aim is to offer farmers digital solutions that motivate them to operate wisely and sustainably, as well as many other benefits.
“We bring together world-class experts from IT, agronomy, and environmental sciences to help farmers return carbon back into the soil, grow crops sustainably and profitably while leading the world toward cleaner nature and healthier food,” says the company.
Through the platform, there are over 1.2 million hectares of farmland managed in Europe and Africa by bringing financial benefits to sustainable farmers.
In order to monitor and verify sustainable practices, produce carbon credits, boost agricultural productivity, and improve access to finance in the future, farmers may use eAgronom. However, it also helps them avoid greenwashing in the process.
Greenwashing or “green sheen” is a sort of marketing spin in which green PR and green marketing are employed to persuade the public that an organisation’s goods, objectives, and policies are ecologically beneficial.
The eAgronom Carbon Programme enables farmers to get paid for producing carbon credits, enhance the quality of their soil, save input costs, and have access to better financing arrangements, making carbon-neutral farming profitable overall.
Capital utilisation
eAgronom says it will use the funds to scale out its carbon programme across Europe and Africa after the initial successes of its carbon credit scheme and its GHG monitoring and data measuring technology.
Robin Saluoks, CEO of eAgronom, says, “With this additional funding, we can continue our efforts to facilitate the transformation of farming practices, enabling them to manage their farms in a more sustainable manner, while simultaneously providing them with supplementary revenue streams and a chance to improve their soil conditions for the future.”
“These steps are crucial in the global fight against climate change where we need to act rather sooner than later,” adds Saluoks.
The carbon programme
eAgronom combines sustainability and financial viability — both essential to today’s agricultural businesses — through its carbon credit income programme for farmers.
Utilising GHG monitoring, eAgronom first calculates and verifies the carbon footprints of farms in order to develop sustainability strategies that are specific to each farm.
The company then provides farmers with direct subsidies to facilitate this transition by encouraging them to adopt practices like optimising fuel and fertiliser consumption as well as soil quality.
According to eAgronom, increased sustainability is advantageous on all fronts since the carbon credits produced by these methods give farmers a new source of income.
Farmers in Spain, Poland, Romania, East Africa, and seven other markets are already supported by eAgronom.
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