EIFO and Novo Holdings lead €6.1m seed round for Greenland’s Rock Flour Company

Each year, the Greenland ice sheet loses about 267bn tonnes of its mass. Its motion grinds the underlying bedrock into a powder. A Greenland-based climate-tech startup, Rock Flour Company (RFC) is convinced that the powder is key to unlocking an untapped carbon-negative agricultural input.

Now, institutional investors are coming along for the ride. The Export and Investment Fund and Denmark (EIFO) and Novo Holdings have successfully led a €6.1m seed funding round for RFC. SISA - Greenland’s pension fund - also participated in the round.

The scale, timing and investor profile of RCF’s latest capital raise point toward rising institutional investor interest in Greenland’s rock flour and a business that could potentially transform it into a viable commercial opportunity.

Rock flour

Greenlandic Rock Flour (GRF) has a lot going for it. For one, it is naturally occurring and packed with minerals and micronutrients. It is also available in abundance - nearly a billion tonnes of GRF are deposited across Greenland’s shores each year.

These features allow GRF to be brought to market as a readily available agricultural input – based on its ability to improve soil health.

RFC and Novo Nordisk Foundation conducted early trials in Ghana and Denmark. The evidence was promising. When GRF was added into the mix, crop yield went up by as much as 30%.

“The Rock Flour Company stems from research that the Novo Nordisk Foundation has supported for a number of years. We now see this knowledge translated into a company with positive results from field trials, strong partnerships and increasing international interest”, says Anders Spohr, managing partner for planetary health investments at Novo Holdings.

In addition, GRF has the ability to capture carbon dioxide equivalent to nearly 25% of its weight. That adds to investor interest in the company’s product offering.

“Glacial Rock Flour has the potential to capture and store carbon from the air at a gigaton scale and unlock farmers’ access to a more sustainable crop nutrient source”, commented Erik Balck Sørensen, CIO at EIFO.

Institutional interest

Now that there is proof in the pudding, RCF is looking to scale its operations and find a product market fit. The task is seemingly capital intensive, which explains the scale and investor profile of the company’s latest funding round.

Alongside EIFO, Novo Holdings and SISA, investors in this round included Nalik Ventures, a Greenland-based VC fund and German impact investor Carbon Drawdown Initiative. They join climate investment firm 2degrees and other strategic investors with existing stakes in RFC.

“We are thrilled to have the support of leading institutional investors from both Greenland - where we operate - and Denmark, where we will first deploy” said Eliot Booth, Rock Flour Company’s operations chief.

For EIFO, both carbon removal and RFC’s early-stage nature, align with its mandate.

“Aligning with EIFO’s mandate to accelerate the green transition, Rock Flour Company is driving local development and solving key sustainability issues within the global agriculture industry”, Sørensen says. “Combined with a world-class founder team, we’re pleased to have taken a seat at the table in this latest funding round”, he adds.

For others, such as Novo Holdings, the opportunity fits into their interest in agriculture as a theme. “With our investment, we want to support the company's ability to scale its solution and thereby contribute to a more sustainable development of agriculture – in Denmark, Greenland and globally”, says Novo Holding’s Anders Spohr.

RCF’s Greenlandic identity has also helped attract financiers. “Backing the development of an innovative solution that not only addresses global climate challenges but also has the potential to fundamentally strengthen Greenland’s economy is what we’re set out to do”, said Peter Christiansen, interim CEO of Nalik Ventures.

Institutional investor interest in RFC’s large-scale seed funding therefore reflects confidence in its proof of concept and the ability of the RCF team to align their business with investor expectations.

In some ways, RFC’s latest round reflects rising investor awareness over what the Artic has to offer. As Christiansen concludes, “The Arctic can be a source of source of optimism in the global transition, and this project proves just that”.