Yara International's venture arm has joined a Series B funding for Potsdam-based soil-sensing startup Stenon, joining a first close earlier this year that raised €18 million ($20.5 million) led by Dutch impact investor Pymwymic. Financial terms of the Yara Growth Ventures investment are undisclosed.

The round lands as Middle East conflict continues to disrupt fertilizer exports and push prices higher. The World Bank in June reported that disruption around the Strait of Hormuz had pushed urea and phosphate prices to their highest levels since 2022. The bank warned that, if disruptions persist, fertilizer and natural gas prices could rise "far above current forecasts, creating significant upside risks to agricultural prices."

Higher fertilizer bills land directly on growers' input cost lines. The World Bank noted that over time, elevated costs could push farmers to apply less fertilizer or shift to less nutrient-hungry crops — moves that pull yields lower and tighten margins from the other direction.

What does Stenon's technology actually do?

Stenon's portable FarmLab device measures plant-available nitrogen, soil organic matter, temperature and moisture directly in the field. The company's software and AI models convert that raw data into fertilizer recommendations for growers and agronomists.

"Plant-available nitrogen can vary significantly across a single field and over a growing season," the company noted, "but to date, many farmers still make fertilizer decisions with limited information about the soil."

Stenon founder and CEO Niels Grabbert told AgFunderNews the device is built to make soil data "an operational layer of agricultural decision-making."

"Our technology is designed to transform soil data from an occasional measurement into an operational layer of agricultural decision-making," Grabbert said. "By generating high-resolution soil information directly in the field, we aim to give farmers and agronomists a stronger basis for nitrogen management decisions."

Why does Yara fit the round?

Grabbert called the Yara investment "a good strategic match," pointing to Yara's standing among the world's largest nitrogen fertilizer producers.

"They produce the inputs we're optimizing, which shows that they have validated our technology and are interested in optimizing their inputs," Grabbert said. He added that Yara brings agronomic and economic expertise Stenon can build into its product line, particularly around Yara's premium fertilizer offerings — economic advice Grabbert described as "super interesting" for pairing with the sensing platform.

Where is the platform deployed today?

Stenon sells to input retailers, machinery dealers, agricultural consultants and food producers. Grabbert said the system already covers several million acres across Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Greece in Europe; Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia; Brazil; and California in the United States.

The customer mix gives the data feed a multi-channel read: recommendations flow through agronomists and retailers already inside the input-purchase decision, and through food producers tracking upstream nutrient practices.

What is the next-12-month plan?

Grabbert outlined three priorities: getting a new technology launch-ready for 2027 (he declined to detail what the product is), scaling Latin American deployments, and entering new markets.

The fresh capital will fund the soil-nitrogen intelligence platform's development and expansion across additional crops and regions. The larger test for Stenon is whether real-time sensing produces enough on-farm margin improvement to justify adoption rates that move the needle on nitrogen demand — and whether input-cost relief for growers translates into measurable changes to local fertilizer application volumes.