FundraiseJul 1, 2026, 21:44 UTC

Stenon raises €18M to help farmers beat fertilizer price shocks

What's the deal? Germany-based Stenon has raised €18 million ($20.5 million) in a Series B round to expand its nitrogen and soil data platform.

Dutch impact investor Pymwymic led the round, with backing from DeepTech & Climate Fonds, Founders Fund, TIME Ventures, and others.

Its FarmLab device uses optical and electrical sensors to map thousands of soil data points in seconds — plant-available nitrogen, organic matter, temperature, and moisture. AI then turns that into fertilizer advice growers can act on immediately, instead of waiting on lab results.

Why now? Fertilizer prices are spiking. Conflict in the Middle East has driven costs up across most markets, and EU nitrogen fertilizer prices sit roughly 70% above their 2024 average.

That pushed the European Commission to mobilise a €540 million ($615 million) relief package for farmers.

In Brazil, which relies on imported fertilizers, growers are cutting back on purchases — putting yields and incomes at risk.

What could go wrong? Stenon can't fix global prices. Its pitch rests on precision: applying each kilogram where and when it counts.

Adoption is the hurdle. Growers must trust field sensors over familiar lab tests, and scaling hardware across continents is costly.

The company claims 2-8% yield increases across crops like corn, cotton, and coffee, plus a 20-40% average return on nitrogen fertilizer. Those numbers need to hold up at scale.

The signal: Now at breakout stage, Stenon has attracted an unusual mix of impact capital and Silicon Valley firepower, with Pymwymic's climate mandate sitting alongside Founders Fund and Marc Benioff's TIME Ventures. That blend signals investors see soil-data hardware as both a climate play and a scalable deeptech bet as fertilizer volatility reshapes farm economics worldwide.