This startup wants climate-resilient crops – and has raised €2.6M

The summer that’s about to end has been the driest ever in Europe. Even in rainy countries like the Netherlands, there has been an extensive period of drought, which has a direct impact on agriculture – improving crop resiliency is a must, then. 

Gravity Gardens is a Dutch startup working on "seed activation" — a chemical-free, dry process that treats seeds before planting to help them establish faster and more resiliently once in the ground. The company won't say exactly how it works because of stringent confidentiality agreements with its partners — still, it claims its tests show promising results. 

Founded in 2024 by Paulino Valdés and Robin Le Vigouroux, the company has raised €2.6 million. VP Capital, Brightlands Venture Partners (BVP), and Graduate Ventures supported the financing round alongside a group of private investors. Together with EFRO regional development funding, it brings the total raised since the company was founded to more than €3 million.

“Seeds go through a treatment process we developed. Once treated, they come out activated and, when planted in the field, they should emerge with a better establishment than untreated seeds,” explains Valdés, CEO of the company. 

What is seed activation?

Before planting, seeds are essentially dormant — they need to be activated to kickstart germination as effectively as possible. A seed treated with a seed activation process has a higher chance of germinating faster, more uniformly, and more robustly than an untreated seed.

For instance, so-called hydro-priming involves immersing seeds in water to activate their internal metabolic processes, then pausing before germination starts. Seeds are then removed from water and dried. Some processors also apply a coating – with nutrients or other agents – as a separate step before sowing. Other priming solutions use chemicals, too. However, conventional seed activation processes often yield mixed results. 

Why other technologies are harder to scale 

According to Valdés, techniques like priming work within certain limits. "The volumes are way too big to do priming," he explains. "If you had to make all of them wet, it's impossible." That confines priming largely to high-value horticultural crops; commodity crops like wheat, barley, or corn are simply grown at a scale water-based treatment can't support.

These crops take up hundreds of hectares. A single hectare of corn, for instance, takes up to 80,000 seeds, enough by volume to fill two standard builder’s buckets. A commercial farm might plant hundreds of hectares at once, meaning it would need large infrastructure to soak and dry kernels. 

Gravity Gardens sets itself apart from the existing techniques. The founders say the pilots conducted so far have the potential to scale commodity crops. The startup has tested the process on a variety of crops with what Valdes describes as consistent, although still confidential, results. 

The funding round will help the Nijmegen-based startup conduct larger field studies and more. The company will also explore developing industrial machinery with Dutch industrial engineering company Demcon, targeting market readiness by 2027.  

New seed coating regulation is kicking in 

European law strengthens the case for Gravity Gardens' technology. The Regulation EU 2023/2055 — an amendment to REACH, the bloc’s general chemical regulation – prohibits the sale of products with intentionally added microplastics. Degradable and soluble polymers can still be used as long as they comply with the directive. This framework also regulates cosmetics, detergents, and seeds. 

Several seed activation processes add microplastic products during the coating step, which occurs after seeds are removed from water – to halt the process at the pre-germination stage. For agriculture, the timeframe is longer than for other industries. Coated seeds containing microplastics won’t be allowed in the EU Market by October 2028, while a ban on seeds treated with plant protection products will take effect three years after. 

New kids on the block

Right now, eight people work for the company. The founders have great ambitions, such as being present on every continent in five years. Yet they also know that disrupting an industry such as agriculture and entering a market dominated by a few large players is challenging. 

“We're certainly not in the same league as Bayer,” says Le Vigouroux, also CTO of the company. “Some people might expect that, being young, we'd be pretty open and unguarded about sharing our ideas — but it's actually the opposite. We know this is a very important industry, and we're careful to protect our intellectual property.”

The dreamer and the realist 

A key element behind Gravity Gardens’ traction is the founding team. Le Vigouroux and Valdés, the former from France and the latter from Mexico, bring extensive international experience and describe themselves as a balanced founding duo. 

“Paulino is the one who dreams and constantly shoots ideas, and I’m the one who keeps our feet on the ground,” says Le Vigouroux. The two have known each other for a decade now and reunited two years ago, when Valdes decided to give one of the many ideas that came to mind a shot.

“I started calling people I knew, and I got into contact with a European Space Agency (ESA, ed.) manager, who thought my idea was worth investigating. So we got their early support from the beginning, and I did my last year university internship at my company. And half of my class ended up working on my project,” recalls Valdes, who studied at HAN University of Applied Sciences.

From there on, Gravity Gardens began moving, was incubated at ESA’s Business Incubation Centre in Noordwijk and put its tech to the test. Larger tests came, including with the research organization Vertify, and now the funding round.  Along the way, the company has also been supported by Rabobank, securing a Rabobank Innovation Loan. Agrifood accelerator StartLife also backs the venture.  

Gravity Gardens' founders. On the left Valdés and on the right Le Vigouroux. - © Gravity Gardens

More resilient crops for everyone 

Both founders aimed to improve agriculture and bring innovation to improve food access, especially in areas where climate change is making it increasingly difficult to grow crops. They agree there is no better place to do so than the Netherlands. 

Not only could they access a strong network of companies and researchers, but they also found farmers open to helping test their idea. “It might be surprising to some, but Dutch farmers are very open to innovation. For me, seeing that our solution is supporting them is what drives me every day,” says Le Vigouroux. 

As this summer's drought made clear, pressure on Europe's growers isn't going away — and it's hitting hardest in regions with the least capacity to adapt. For Valdés, that's the point: "The main driver is that I want to help the world," he says. "I want to help animals and plants. That's my mission."