Turning the Tide on Salty Soils: OlsAro Raises €2.5M to Expand Climate-Resilient Crops

Courtesy: OlsAro

Swedish agtech startup OlsAro has secured €2.5 million in pre-seed funding to accelerate its work on climate-adapted crops. The round was led by Future Food Fund and PINC, the venture arm of Finnish food company Paulig, with participation from AgFunder, FLORA Ventures, Mudcake, and existing investors. OlsAro’s early backers also include the founders of plant-based giant Oatly.

The funding will support the company’s expansion into new geographies and the advancement of its AI-enabled crop development platform, which aims to deliver resilient crop varieties capable of thriving under extreme environmental conditions.

At the heart of OlsAro’s mission is a challenge that looms over global agriculture: feeding a growing population with fewer viable resources. Global food demand is expected to rise by 50% by 2050, but conventional agriculture's productivity is in decline, threatened by increasingly erratic weather patterns, soil degradation, and the shrinking availability of arable land. A particularly acute issue is soil salinity, which affects over 830 million hectares of land worldwide—an area larger than the United States.

OlsAro’s response is rooted in a proprietary platform that applies AI to forward genetics, speeding up the development of new crop varieties. Its first major breakthrough is a salt-tolerant wheat variety that has demonstrated a 52% yield increase over existing strains in saline conditions in Bangladesh. This innovation enables farming on previously unusable land, especially during the dry season, offering local farmers the opportunity to increase their incomes and contribute to the domestic food supply.

“Making otherwise unfarmable land productive again is one of the clearest ways we can increase food security in a changing climate,” said OlsAro CEO Elén Faxö. “This investment will help us scale our reach and refine our technology to support farming communities facing the harshest environmental conditions.”

Wheat, one of the world’s most vital crops, has been under particular pressure in recent years. Supply chains have been repeatedly disrupted by climate extremes, the COVID-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine, and political instability in key agricultural regions. The growing prevalence of saline soils only intensifies these risks. By allowing cultivation on land degraded by salt, OlsAro’s wheat could open up new areas for production at a time when food security is under strain.

Behind OlsAro’s development is a decade of research and a proprietary collection of genetically diverse wheat strains. This diversity is crucial to identifying the traits needed to adapt to environmental stressors. According to CTO Henrik Aronsson, the company's approach can reduce the time it takes to develop new varieties by a factor of three compared to traditional breeding methods. In addition to salt tolerance, OlsAro is exploring traits related to nitrogen efficiency and nutritional value.

“Our platform allows us to match the right genetic characteristics with the specific challenges farmers are facing,” Aronsson said. “This funding is a catalyst to expand both our research capabilities and our presence in regions where the stakes are highest.”

OlsAro is already building commercial momentum. In Bangladesh, it has a contract in place and continues field trials in Pakistan, Kenya, Oman, and Nepal. The company is now preparing to extend its reach to Australia, India, and other regions grappling with salinity-related agricultural decline.

For its investors, the promise lies not only in the technology but also in the potential for widespread impact. “We see OlsAro’s work as central to the transformation towards more resilient global food systems,” said Jaap Strengers, Managing Partner at Future Food Fund. “Their team brings together cutting-edge science with a clear understanding of agricultural realities on the ground.”

As the world searches for ways to maintain productivity under intensifying environmental pressure, companies like OlsAro offer a glimpse of how targeted innovation, backed by science and supported through global collaboration, might help close the gap between food demand and supply.