We focus on two industries: agriculture and clean hydrogen.
We invest in startups and in funds as a limited partner. For both investment types, we aim to be the best partner that we can be by leveraging our network (both in Yara and across our industries) to help those around us succeed. Agriculture and clean hydrogen are industries that will require collaborative work to make a real change - we see ourselves as enablers of that change.
Our agriculture thesis
Our core thesis is that we believe in "no compromise farming." By that we mean that we don't believe that the majority of farmers, advisors, or agriculture companies are going to be willing to compromise on yield, quality, profitability, and time effort in order to meet sustainability demands. As such, we are looking for companies which have a high impact with low effort required and price parity (or better) with current practices in order to get sustainability to massive adoption. With this in mind, we invest in the following verticals, themes, and business models.
Agriculture verticals
New biologicals for the field: New products that help with yield and quality while having better efficiencies.
Agronomic decision support: Data is great, but only as far as its able to drive a decision to be made.
Supply chain optimization: Building better, smarter, and more efficient agricultural supply chains.
Agricultural financing: Access to financial instruments enabling better income and security.
Agriculture themes
Decarbonization and sustainability: All investments should have at least some tie back to accelerating decarbonization and sustainability.
Soil health: Protecting the world’s soils for future generations.
Industry transparency: Creating clarity across the value chain from field to fork - and doing it as frictionless as possible.
High impact, low effort: We believe farmers shouldn’t have to compromise on their outputs to meet sustainability requirements.
Agriculture business models
We are interested in new business model opportunities in agriculture (while understanding that there are some traditional ones here to stay). The business models we like to invest in include: SaaS, direct to customer, marketplaces, subscription, manufacturer, fertilizer as a service, outcome based, and generally models which move towards "do it for you."
Our clean hydrogen thesis
Clean hydrogen is a critical part of the world's ability to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Given Yara's hundreds of years of experience in ammonia production, we are looking to empower and accelerate the transition to green and blue production by investing in the "picks and shovels" of the industry including the verticals, themes, and business models below.
Clean hydrogen verticals
Carbon-free fertilizer: Carbon-free fertilizer and food enabled by clean ammonia and hydrogen.
Clean power production: Ammonia as substitute for coal and natural gas in power plants.
Zero-carbon maritime fuel: Ammonia as fuel decarbonizing the maritime sector.
Zero-carbon heavy duty fuel: Ammonia as fuel decarbonizing the transport sector.
Clean hydrogen themes
Green hydrogen production: Next generation hydrogen electrolysers with low CAPEX and high efficiency.
Blue and turquoise hydrogen production: Next generation high performance blue and turquoise hydrogen.
Next generation ammonia: Technologies enabling clean ammonia production, synthesis, cracking, and use.
Systems solutions and business models: New business models and configurations enabling hydrogen and ammonia uptake.
Clean hydrogen business models
We are interested in manufacturing, SaaS, distributed production, subscription, and transaction based business models.