Norwegian crop nutrition giant Yara International has invested in Stenon, a German startup that measures soil nitrogen in the field, through its venture arm, Yara Growth Ventures.
The investment is the second close of Potsdam-based Stenon’s Series B round. It follows a €18 million ($20.5 million) first close earlier this year led by Dutch impact investor Pymwymic. Financial terms of the Yara deal are not disclosed.
The deal comes as conflict in the Middle East continues to disrupt fertilizer exports and drive up prices. In June, the World Bank said disruption around the Strait of Hormuz had pushed urea and phosphate prices to their highest levels since 2022. It warned that if the disruptions persist, fertilizer and natural gas prices could rise “far above current forecasts, creating significant upside risks to agricultural prices.”
Higher fertilizer costs raise farmers’ production costs in the near term. Over time, the bank noted, they could also push growers to apply less fertilizer or switch to less nutrient-hungry crops, which would weigh on yields.
Stenon wants to make fertilizer use more efficient by giving farmers frequent, real-time soil data to guide nitrogen decisions. Plant-available nitrogen can vary significantly across a single field and over a growing season, but to date, many farmers still make fertilizer decisions with limited information about the soil.
Stenon’s portable FarmLab device measures plant-available nitrogen, soil organic matter, temperature, and moisture, among other things, directly in the field. The company’s software and AI models then turn that raw data into fertilizer recommendations for growers and agronomists.
“Our technology is designed to transform soil data from an occasional measurement into an operational layer of agricultural decision-making,” Stenon founder and CEO Niels Grabbert tells AgFunderNews. “By generating high-resolution soil information directly in the field, we aim to give farmers and agronomists a stronger basis for nitrogen management decisions.”
‘A good strategic match’
Grabbert notes that because Yara is one of the world’s largest producers of nitrogen fertilizer, the investment is “a good strategic match” for both companies.
“They produce the inputs we’re optimizing, which shows that they have validated our technology and are interested in optimizing their inputs.”
Yara also brings agronomic and economic expertise that Stenon can build into its own product, he adds.
“They typically focus on high-premium fertilizer, and they have a very strong brand because they provide really good economic advice. For us at Stenon, that’s super interesting, because integrating more of their economic knowledge with our sensing technology creates an even better, more holistic output for the client.”
Stenon sells to input retailers, machinery dealers, agricultural consultants and food producers. Grabbert says the platform is already used across several million acres in Europe (Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Greece), Central Asia (Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan), Brazil and the US (California).
The new funding will go toward developing Stenon’s soil nitrogen intelligence platform and expanding it to more crops and regions.
In the next 12 months, Grabbert says Stenon has three key goals: getting its new technology ready to launch in 2027 (he did not disclose further details about what that technology is), increasing deployments in Latin America, and expanding into new markets.
