US-based startup Phospholutions recently announced a major milestone in its journey to making phosphate fertilizer a more efficient tool for farmers: commercial-scale production of its RhizoSorb additive via a partnership with fertilizer heavyweight Toros Agri. Phospholutions calls this “a significant leap toward offering a sustainable alternative for the world’s second most essential nutrient for global food production.”
Phosphate fertilizers are critical to crop yields but also highly inefficient: crops imbibe only about 10% of the phosphate applied to them each year, with the rest typically going into our waterways. As a result, farmers are advised to over-apply, despite the economic and environmental implications of this.
Founded in 2016, Phospholutions has developed RhizoSorb, a dry granular phosphorus fertilizer formulated to increase phosphorus efficiency in the soil. The company claims a 50% increase in efficiency of fertilizer uptake in plants throughout the growing season.
The Toros Agri partnership was formed after Phospholutions’ Series A round, which included participation from Tekfen Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Toros Agri owner Tekfen Holding.
An initial pilot produced RhizoSorb at scale for the first time ever in a commercial-scale phosphate manufacturing plant that typically produces commodity phosphates, says Phospholutions founder and CEO Hunter Swisher.
That pilot “couldn’t have gone better,” he tells AgFunderNews, adding that the company made about four times more product than originally intended. “We ended up selling out pretty quickly and had to go back and make a second, much larger production run.”
“We essentially went from close to zero last year in terms of product sales into having a fully integrated producer that can support a substantial volume,” he adds. “That allows us to prove out the fact that [RhizoSorb] can be put into production and the business model of working with producers to make [the additive] upstream.”
Swisher suggests the latter is a differentiator for Phospholutions: “Every other [phosphorus efficiency] product on the market is incorporated downstream in the value chain, limiting the ability for manufacturers to capture value in making these commodities better for the farmer,” he explains.
What’s next
RhizoSorb has so far been imported into the US, where ag retailers in the Midwest are currently selling it.
Toros Agri being a Turkish company, the two also have plans for Eastern Europe, where they are in the second year of conducting performance trials (in Turkey) on corn and wheat.
“Toro is the largest fertilizer manufacturer in Turkey, and has a pretty strong brand there and in some of the surrounding countries,” says Swisher. “Essentially, the work that we’re doing both supports commercialization in other places, but also [has] a primary focus [for] the long term of being both a manufacturing distributor in Eastern Europe.”
The next year will involve scaling up in the US as well as conducting more trials with partners. In addition to Toros Agri, Phospholutions has a partnership with Keytrade Ag, one of the world’s largest fertilizer brokers.
Earlier this year, the company also launched a partnership with crop nutrition solutions provider WeGrow AG to commercialize Rhizosorb in the North, Central and South Americas.
Fundraising is also on the near-term horizon, and Swisher seems unconcerned about the tough capital environment many agtech startups currently face.
“We’re a pretty capital-light business based on our model,” he says. “We don’t need a big sales force. We don’t make our stuff and and we don’t really want to sell it, either. We leverage the partnerships to get this technology at scale.”
The company also has “a lot of tailwind” right now, he adds. “We’ve been making significant progress and exceeding all of our expectations to our investors.”
“The market itself is just, the market right now. We’re trying [to raise] the least amount of capital needed to weather the storm out without compromising the growth and traction we’ve been able to make.”
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