By Staff Writer
Happy Valley-launched startup Phospholutions Inc., a leader in sustainable fertilizer technology, has announced additional investment from leading global agricultural companies to support commercialization of RhizoSorb® in the US row crop market. The recent funding includes investment from Ospraie Ag Sciences, Bunge Ventures, the for-profit, global investment arm of Bunge, and UPL Ltd.
“RhizoSorb® is proven to deliver the same amount of phosphorus to the plant with half the amount of applied fertilizer,” Hunter Swisher, founder and chief executive officer, said. “Conventional fertilizers are inefficient as less than 25% of phosphorus is taken up by the crop during the growing season. With recent increases in fertilizer prices and supply constraints in key global markets, farmers urgently need proven solutions to help maximize the return on input costs.
He said that the investment will help to accelerate a commercial launch for the product. “The investment will support this year’s commercial trial program, strategic development partnerships, and enable product to be delivered to the US row crop market for the 2023 growing season.”
In addition to this new investment series, Phospholutions announced that Stephan Levitsky joined the team as chief operating officer and vice president of sustainability. Levitsky has more than 20 years of senior executive experience in leading food and agricultural companies. “The support for our shared global vision of a more sustainable future for agriculture has us aligning strategically with our investors who are looking to bring science-backed solutions to the market to make meaningful impact,” said Levitsky.
Phospholutions was launched in Innovation Park. In 2018, the company won the Venture & IP Conference Tech Tournament. In early 2021, it received Series A investment totaling $10.3M, which allowed it to grow to more than triple in size. At the time, the investments were led by Continental Grain Company with participation from Tekfen Ventures, Maumee Ventures, Ag Ventures Alliance, and 1855 Capital. Additionally, Phospholutions recently won a $250K investment during The Radicle Challenge by UPL.
Late last year, Phospholutions was also chosen as one of the first five companies selected for the Farm2050 Nutrient Technology Trialing Platform in New Zealand, organized by Finistere Ventures and Innovations Endeavors. New Zealand will join Canada, US, Turkey, India, Brazil and Africa on the list of global RhizoSorb® trial locations planned for 2022.
Phospholutions is part of a host of Happy Valley companies that have received private equity investments and venture capitalist funding in the past two years. These companies have been the recipients of millions of dollars in investments for their innovative ideas that push the boundaries of their respective industries.
In 2020, Blue Mountain Quality Resources, a developer of enterprise asset management products and services for the Life Sciences industry, received a significant growth investment from Accel-KKR, a leading technology-focused investment firm. Videon, leader in edge computing for live video, raised a total of $16.3 million over 7 months to expand its senior leadership, engineering, marketing, and sales teams and drive even more innovation in Videon’s next-generation video edge computing platform. EnergyCap, the number one trusted energy and sustainability ERP (enterprise resource planning), secured a strategic investment from Resurgens Technology Partners. Immunomagnetic tech company Biomagnetic Solutions partnered with Gamma Biosciences, and is building a new headquarters in Innovation Park as it moves into commercialization. In June, KCF Technologies announced that it had recently secured a minority growth equity investment from a private investment firm focused on investing in technology-driven companies, Graham Partners.
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