Danish soil carbon start-up Agreena scales its carbon farming platform across two million hectares

The company launched its soil carbon platform AgreenaCarbon in 2021 with the aim of financially supporting farmers’ transition to regenerative agriculture, enabling them to take an active role in addressing the climate crisis by removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in their soils.

It works by providing farmers with the opportunity to turn their reduced emissions into carbon certificates, which other companies can then buy to offset their own emissions.

Via the company’s digital platform, farmers plan, track and validate improvements for their regenerative journey, in the process transitioning from emitting CO2 to drawing CO2 down and storing it within their soils. The improved soil health and biodiversity reduce the need for inputs while enhancing farmers’ resilience to increasingly adverse climate conditions (such as drought or flooding), enhancing the overall operational performance of farms.

On the other side of the equation, Agreena’s certificates and downstream services support climate-focused companies already working to decarbonise, as well as companies in the food supply chain increasingly requiring field-level traceability of their agricultural commodities to comply with Scope 3 reporting requirements.

The company now says more than a thousand farmers are now using the platform, with two million hectares of farmland converted to regenerative farming practices – equivalent to the size of Slovenia, or 2.8 million European football fields.

The company said the feat demonstrated the potential for technology to support a shift in agricultural practices and farmers’ efforts to mitigate climate change.

“Carbon sequestration in agriculture is one of the top solutions to scale climate action according to the IPCC, but it can involve high upfront costs for farmers. Agreena leverages cutting-edge science and technology to convert climate-friendly farming efforts into high-quality carbon removal credits, delivering vital additional revenue to farmers,”​ said Julie Koch Fahler, co-founder and COO of Agreena.

In 2022, Agreena acquired cutting-edge measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) technology for regenerative agriculture practices, using remote sensing and AI to further build out its capabilities. Coupling soil sampling and ground-truth field data with advanced machine-learning and computer vision techniques, the company says it is building out soil carbon intelligence at scale.

“Accurate, faster, and more transparent than manual farm audits, digital MRV solutions ensure that carbon farming programmes can scale effectively,”​ said Fahler, adding that the company is uniquely positioned to continuously monitor and track what is going on at the field-level to provide an extra level of trust and credibility for carbon credit buyers. 

To ensure integrity, data review and field inspections are undertaken by an independent third-party validation and verification body prior to issuing credits for sale in the voluntary carbon market. This confirms that emission reductions and carbon removals have taken place, strengthening the quality of the carbon credits and their role as a viable solution on the path to net zero.

In March this year, the Copenhagen-based company announced a Series B raise of €46 million to fund its expansion plans. Led by Germany’s multi-stage investor HV Capital, the fundraise also comprised new investors including impact fund AENU and fintech-focused Anthemis. The equity raise was also supported by a doubling-down from existing shareholders, including evergreen food investor Gullspång Re:food, tech investor Kinnevik and Denmark’s Export and Investment fund.

Scaling with technology​

It also announced the acquisition of remote sensing company Hummingbird Technologies which enabled Agreena to expand its offering beyond farmers to encompass agridata services for supply chain players, governments and other institutions.

Claiming to prioritise a science-based and technology-first agenda, Agreena’s platform now incorporates AI-based monitoring and verification solution that utilises satellite imagery, coupled with ground-truth data and machine learning to identify and report on-farm regenerative agriculture practices.

Offering global monitoring, the company is on a mission to take the lead in supporting the road to net zero for the full value chain.

“Real climate impact is only created at scale and Agreena is perfectly positioned to distribute their carbon farming capabilities across the globe to bring high-quality, verifiable and nature-based carbon credits to the market. Only with carbon removals, can net zero targets be met,”​ said Alexander Joel-Carbonell, partner at HV Capital.