Planetary Impact Ventures is one of several investors in UK agritech startup Elaniti, which measures the biological activity within soil to help farmers address issues with soil health and crop outcomes.
UK agritech startup Elaniti has closed its recent funding round with investments from Danish impact investor Planetary Impact Ventures, as well as biotope, an early-stage biotech incubator programme run by Flemish life sciences institute VIB, and PINC, the venture capital arm of food and beverage company Paulig.
The funding round brings total investments to date to €1.5m, which includes non-dilutive funding from Innovate UK, the UK’s national innovation agency, which the company received in January this year.
Elaniti, which launched in 2022, has developed a predictive analytics platform, which includes a range of data-driven decision support tools to help farmers and agronomists improve crop performance by enhancing their understanding of the soil microbiome – the microbes that drive soil health and crop outcomes. This in turn reduces reliance on synthetic inputs such as nitrogen fertilizers and fungicides.
Speaking to Impact Investor, Scott Jarrett, Elaniti’s CEO, explained that the forecasts provided by the platform are based on analysing the soil’s biological, physical, and nutrient characteristics and that they target different outcomes depending on the needs of the farmer. These include improving yield, controlling disease and managing soil nutrients.
“If a farmer is looking to address a particular disease for example, we can help them to understand what their risk is of that disease being expressed by interpreting the soil microbiome.
“We then provide a layer of intelligence to help them with their decision-making, for example where in a field they might be at the highest risk of disease and how they can address that. This, for instance, could be by selecting a different variety of wheat, more resistant to a particular disease,” said Jarrett.
The company said it would use the investments to strengthen its team and expand its research efforts to accelerate the launch of its platform, scheduled for the autumn.
Understanding the soil microbiome
Elaniti said its technology addresses a critical knowledge gap in agriculture, that while both soil chemical and physical properties are often measured, biological activity remains largely unknown.
Thomas Høgenhaven, founder and managing partner of Planetary Impact Ventures, a €22m evergreen venture fund investing in agriculture, food, and living soils, agreed. He told Impact Investor that abandoning synthetic fertilisers and pesticides to build a more resilient food system within planetary boundaries, required deep insights into soil ecosystems.
“[This is] one of the most biodiverse habitats on the planet, yet still largely unexplored. Elaniti is very aligned with this purpose by leveraging microbial data and AI to create a global database of soil life, providing farmers with data-driven decision-making tools to adopt more organic-regenerative practices.”
Høgenhaven said that this not only accelerates the move away from soil-depleting agricultural methods but also enables the discovery of new bio-stimulants to enhance soil health and farm productivity.
“This is exactly what we need to create a more resilient food system in an uncertain world,” he added.
Self-sufficiency
Jarrett said that a better understanding of the soil microbiome was also taking on more importance against a backdrop of growing geopolitical uncertainty as it could help countries become more self-sufficient.
“We have seen how the volatility of fertiliser prices has increased following conflicts like the war in Ukraine. If we can help farmers become less reliant on those products, we see that as a benefit not only for the environment but also for food security. Our ultimate goal is to help farmers achieve their objectives in the most efficient way possible,” he added.
Elaniti’s team of five includes agriculture, microbiology, and artificial intelligence specialists.
