Agtech startup Nitricity, San Francisco, announced on Oct. 12 the close of its Series A investment capital raise at $20 million. The company said its technology produces ready-to-use nitrogen with only air, water, and renewable energy, and it is scaling what it calls the world’s only on-farm, cost-effective, decarbonized solution to fertilizer production (GM Aug. 20, 2021).
This fundraising round was led by Khosla Ventures and Fine Structure Ventures, with additional participation from Energy Impact Partners, Lowercarbon Capital, and MCJ Collective. With this financing, Nitricity has raised $27 million in total funding to date.
The company plans to accelerate its ability to bring climate-smart fertilizer to a market experiencing ongoing and historic fertilizer price volatility and supply challenges. It aims for its renewable technology to be available in the market and benefitting the entire value chain within a two-year period.
“Today’s fertilizer industry is facing the perfect storm of high GHG emissions, high fossil fuel consumption, rising costs, and geopolitical disruptions,” said Rajesh Swaminathan, Partner at Khosla Ventures. “Nitricity’s decentralized approach to manufacturing fertilizers using just air, water, and renewables-based electricity was born out of a vision to completely transform a 100-year-old industry, and we are excited to be partnering with them.”
“Nitricity has made rapid progress since our initial investment in their Seed round,” said Allison Hinckley, Senior Associate at Fine Structure Ventures, a venture capital fund affiliated with FMR LLC, the parent company of Fidelity Investments. “In response, we are increasing our support of the company to aid in bringing their differentiated, decarbonized fertilizer products to market in the near term.”