Agreena, a Danish startup that mints, verifies and sells carbon certificates generated by farmers who transition to regenerative farming, announced that it has raised €20M in a Series A round of funding led by Kinnevik, a European growth-stage investor.
Existing investors, including Giant Ventures, Vaekstfonden – the Danish states’ investment fund, and farmer angel investors, also participated in the round. The round brings the total funding raised to €26.9M since its inception.
Fund utilisation
The capital injection will enable Agreena to enhance its vertically integrated tech stack with blockchain for greater market transparency and traceability. The company is also gearing up for expansion and enabling new financing solutions for farmers in the future.
“The genesis of our company is deeply rooted to farmers, and with a strong fintech backbone, our mission, aligned with our investors, is to break down barriers for farmers so they can maximise their thin margins while simultaneously making the world a better place,” says Simon Haldrup, co-founder and CEO of Agreena.
“With both our climate and our soils in a state of emergency, farmers who have historically been singled out to blame now have the opportunity to become the heroes of future generations – and get paid,” he adds.
Agreena: What you need to know
Founded by Ida Boesen, Julie Koch Fahler and Simon Haldrup, Danish agtech startup Agreena originated as an online commodity trading marketplace, but it is now one of the first carbon farming platforms in the pan-European landscape.
Agreena provides economic incentives to farmers to switch from traditional farming to regenerative agriculture practises by issuing them a CO2 e-certificate.
AgreenaCarbon farmers will work with the company and expert agronomists to develop detailed plans for regenerative agriculture practises that need to be adopted each annual harvest cycle.
“Regenerative farming is not all about turning soil into carbon sinks,” adds Haldrup.
He continues, “From day one, our programme was developed with agronomists that are experts in conservation agriculture. Our entire suite of practises provide a plethora of benefits beyond soil health and management – boosted nutrients and biodiversity, improved water infiltration, enhanced ecosystems, and healthier crop yields.”
Last year, the Copenhagen company became one of the first European companies internationally accredited to quantify, measure, report, and verify greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions and removal enhancements, focused specifically on soil and sustainable farming techniques.
How does it work?
First off, farmers need to register their fields and get proper advice on moving to regenerative practises. Consequently, the changes are then monitored by Agreena using low-orbit satellite data combined with NDVI algorithms.
“Agreena combines field-level practises with advanced technologies to capture the climate impact farmers make by coupling five years of ground-truth data with an IPCC-aligned GHG farm model,” writes Agreena in its blog post.
As a part of the validation process, an additional field inspection will be done by a third-party verification body before Agreena issues CO2-e certificates.
The farmers can sell the CO2-e certificates independently or through Agreena’s marketplace to companies that want to buy the carbon offsets from the farmers.
Currently, Agreena serves more than 150 farmers in eight countries with more than 50,000 hectares of farmland yielding regeneratively.
Investors
Based out of Stockholm, Kinnevik is an entrepreneurial investment group focused on building digital consumer businesses. The VC backs companies at every stage of their journey and invests in Europe, with a focus on the Nordics, and in the US.
“The necessary transition to more sustainable farming is an impactful and sizable climate opportunity. We have been impressed by the Agreena founding team and their nimble and thoughtful approach to supporting farmers in transitioning to regenerative practises, enabling carbon capture, and restoring biodiversity,” says Magnus Jakobson, investment director at Kinnevik.