In February, the story of The Nest was featured in the Belgian publication De Tijd. Their conversation with Els Thermote covered her motivation to start The Nest, her ambitions for Domaine de Graux, and her hopes for a more resilient food system. In the interview, Els reflected on the importance of reconnecting farmers, producers, retailers, and the wider public - with one another, with their food, and with the soil that sustains us. Her words define the heart of our mission and are reflected in the updates in this double edition of our monthly news.
From the Farm
In 2025, we announced the exciting renovation at Domaine de Graux. We will be adding an education hub, event space, and on-site lodging as well as a restaurant and amenities. The project is ambitious, but also thoughtful in how we renovate original structures built in the 15th century and build new. Read our “concrete response” to making the project sustainable from materials to energy systems, and design choices to execution.
March was B Corp Month. Throughout the month, the team from Domaine de Graux shared their journey as a certified B Corp since June 2025, and how those values are put to work at the farm to generate meaningful positive impact. Additional posts included a case study on the products from our conservation orchard and how the team fosters a culture of shared ambition and continuous learning.
Johanna, Impact Coordinator at The Nest, interviewed the ornithologist who is the driving force behind the nest box strategy at Domaine de Graux. In the interview, he shares insights on how nesting boxes and habitats at the farm support the many bird species that provide pest management in our agro-ecological system.
Job opportunity
Domaine de Graux is looking for a Sales Manager — an exciting opportunity to help shape a place dedicated to inspiring, sustainable, and immersive experiences. As Sales Manager, you will play a key role in shaping and developing the future of Domaine de Graux as a venue for events, retreats, and immersive learning experiences. You’ll take ownership of the commercial development, driving sales from lead to contract while building meaningful partnerships with organizations that care about how and where they gather — all in close collaboration with the General Manager and operational team (mostly out in the field meeting clients, with 1–2 days on-site per week in Tournai).
This is a role for someone with strong drive, commercial instinct, and a genuine belief in what’s being built.
Discover the full role: https://domainedegraux.com/jobs/
Connecting at the Systemic Investing Summit
Next week, Johanna, our Impact Manager, will be joining the Systemic Investing Summit in Rio de Janeiro. We’re looking forward to engaging with a global community of like-minded change makers, connecting around shared challenges, and exchanging insights on how finance can better serve people, planet, and long-term resilience. If you’ll be there too, we’d love to connect.
Portfolio News
Ardo
ARDO has taken home the FoodService Instituut Foodcourt Award 2026.
Ardo’s Flemish Ardo sites in Belgium received the Sports Label 2026-2027 from 'Sport Vlaanderen,' the second time Ardo have received the recognition.
Agricarbon
Agricarbon shared results from the First Milk regenerative dairy project. First Milk encompasses 85 commercial dairy farms and more than 2,000 fields. Agricarbon’s team took over 20,000 deep soil cores, up to 1 meter deep. The project scale relied on Agricarbon’s Automated Soil Carbon Analysis system to assess soil organic carbon and bulk density at scale, showing average gains of 8.9 CO₂ tonnes per hectare per year.
Agricarbon helped draft the Soil Sampling and Analysis (SSA) Handbook as part of carbon registry Verra’s update to their improved agricultural land management methodology (version 3). The SSA Handbook conveys requirements for soil sampling design, sample size determination, field and laboratory procedures, and equivalent soil mass calculations.
Agricarbon also shared insights on carbon markets and 5 Myths of Measurement, Reporting and Verification and recently posted their outlook, “Regenerative agriculture in 2026: from promise to proof.”
Antler Bio
2026 Royal Dairy Innovation Award finalist Antler Bio launched their cutting-edge epigenetics tool EpiHerd to delegates at Dairy-Tech in late January. EpiHerd has now been validated on 100 Finnish dairy farms and is being adopted on UK dairy farms.
The Antler Bio team is participating a research project, "IN-CH4RGE: Identifying novel biomarkers for CH4-regulating gene expression" with University of Reading. The project was funded by an Innovate UK Business Connect farmed animal and aquaculture SPARK award. The project will determine whether gene expression in high yielding dairy cows can be used as a biomarker for enteric methane emissions.
Belgomeals
Belgomeals was featured in Trends Gazellen with the article “Scalable innovation from farmer to plate.” The article highlights Belgomeals’ introduction of 30% organic vegetables in meals for childcare centers - without increasing costs.
Biotope
The latest news and posts from the Biotope family of retailers includes:
UDEA
- UDEA supported a campaign to help install solar panels for one of their Bionana banana farmers
- How extremely wet weather in Spain is affecting the region’s organic fruit and vegetable production
- The impact of bird flu in the Netherlands on UDEA’s egg suppliers
- A non-organic mandarin contains four types of poison.
- Visiting partner farmers from Nature Bio Foods in India.
Färm
Edacious
Edacious Product Design lead Alex Turnwall introduced their latest product update, the Pro Platform to support branded food producers.
Edacious announced Amanda Rothbauer, Customer Success Lead, in their latest Behind the Bench post, a series that introduces the people behind how food quality is measured, interpreted, and communicated.
Quick Organics
Connie Karr, Chief Certification Liaison at Quick Organics, shares her perspectives in the post, “Why Staying Organic Takes More Than Belief - It Takes Support, Continuity, and Care.”
Frankie Grundler and Greg Schreiner of Quick Organics were featured on the podcast Farm4Profit episode, “How is Quick Organics Making Organic Farming Easier?”
ReelData AI
Canada’s Ocean Supercluster featured ReelData AI as a promising, meaningful career path in the ocean sector.
Steward
The team at Steward highlighted the fully repaid $2,389,000 loan to Green Acres Milling. The funds were used to purchase equipment for oat milling to support regional growers in Minnesota. Recent successfully funded opportunities included Provenance Grainways, an importer of organic quinoa that helps smallholder Indigenous Andean farmers in Bolivia’s Southern Altiplano build long-term resilience.
Zymofix
A De Tijd interview with Zymofix founder and CEO Emile Redant highlighted how the company is using biotechnology to support sustainable agriculture and bring scalable microbial solutions to the market. Zymofix is also exploring the use of microbes for more sustainable resource mining and recovery.
Portfolio Funds
AgFunder
The latest headlines from AgFunder include:
- As cocoa prices swing, Kawa Project offers an upcycled alternative from spent coffee grounds
- Beyond glyphosate: Quercus Bio targets weeds with designer protein
- ‘Biogeographical context’ is key to accelerating R&D in biologicals, says Brazil CDMO IdeeLab
- America invents, Brazil and China deploy. Can the Farm Bill fix Washington’s ag biotech bottleneck?
- How AI, automated labs and CDMOs are replacing agrifood’s 100-year-old R&D playbook
Arborview Capital
Hitachi Energy recently partnered with Arborview portco Pakal Technologies, a cutting-edge innovator in silicon power semiconductor design. Hitachi Energy will be incorporating Pakal Technologies’ groundbreaking Insulated Gate Turn-Off (Thyristor), IGTO(t)™, silicon power switch into its market-leading high-voltage power modules.
Arborview portco Perch Energy, an industry-leading community solar servicer, conducted two major transactions in the past 12 months. Perch merged with Arcadia in March 2025, and acquired Solstice, a community solar service provider in February 2026.
biotope by VIB
The biotope incubator closed its most recent application for their startup bootcamp on 28 February. The next cohort of 10 biotech startups will be announced soon, joining an incredible 83 founding teams from all across the globe that have benefitted from the accelerator program.
Blume Equity
Blume Equity co-founder Clare Murray was named to the Milken Institute Young Leaders Circle in Europe. The recognition spotlights emerging leaders who are advancing market-based solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.
Two of Blume Equity’s portfolio companies were spotlighted recently. Scientific American covered how Overstory’s AI-powered vegetation intelligence helps utilities detect and prevent catastrophic wildfires. And Aerones earned a spot on the Tech Tour Growth50 Europe 2025 list, with recognition as one of Europe’s most compelling growth-stage technology companies.
Blume Equity’s latest insights discuss the overlooked, complicated, yet essential mining industry and the impact of AI on a new generation of engineering software.
Omnivore
Omnivore published an in-depth report, “AgriTech landscape and opportunities in South and Southeast Asia.” The 52-page report, presented at Omnivore’s annual meeting, offers valuable market context for investors interested in this region.
Omnivore posted other notable headlines for February and March:
- Swedfund, Sweden’s development finance institution, invested $7.5 million in Omnivore portco Arya.ag, India’s largest grain commerce platform.
- India will see IPOs in agritech before America or Europe, says Omnivore’s Mark Kahn (AgFunder)
- Omnivore won Venture Capital Firm of the Year: ESG in the New Private Markets Global Awards 2025
Pymwymic
Ag machinery giant Kubota Corporation’s strategic investment anchored a $6.5 million raise for Pymwymic portco Kilter. Kilter is a Norwegian ag-tech company that is developing autonomous precision weeding solutions.
Vivent Biosignals appointed Fernando Derossi as Chief Executive Officer & Partner to lead global growth for the company following a recent funding round led by led by Agri Investment Fund with participation from Pymwymic and Horticoop.
Congratulations to Pymwymic on being a B Corp since 2013. With four recertifications achieved, Pymwymic attained a current score of 142, the top tier of impact investment globally.
Synthesis Capital
Synthesis Capital shared their latest posts, covering a global issues, “The Health and Economic Implications of Antibiotic Overuse and Resistance” and “The Fertilizer and Food System Fallout of Middle East War.”
Food as Medicine Foundation
Between 23 February and 4 April, the Food as Medicine Foundation launched a 2026 project call Health, from Soil to Stomach to support initiatives in Belgium that engage children aged 0–12 with healthy and sustainable food in an accessible, hands-on way. The call was open to non-profit organizations working on food awareness and/or food access, contributing to a more sustainable food system. Selected projects will be notified in late June after a thorough selection process.
Our Food as Medicine Foundation, along with nearly 50 organizations, supported a carte blanche published in Le Soir. The initiative calls for a collective mobilization — Wallonia-Brussels Federation, Regions, and Federal State — to build a coherent, ambitious, sustainable, and locally anchored school feeding policy, and to protect access to free meals in schools for the most vulnerable groups. Learn more about the issue here.
Eat More Trees
Following the award-winning premiere of the Eat More Trees documentary, the newspaper De Morgen published a seven-page article on the film and chefs who are putting “tree food” on the menu. The Eat More Trees documentary was also selected for the Docville Belgian documentary film festival, which is an Academy Award® qualifying film event. Find the full schedule for Eat More Trees screenings or organize a screening at the EMT website.
Top 50 Farmers
Top 50 Farmers announced their 2026 cohort on 17 March 2026. You can meet the latest cohort and view a map of their farms, representing 20 countries, at the Top 50 Farmers website.
Farm for Good
We couldn’t agree more with this lovely testimonial for Farm for Good’s cover crop mix from Isabelle d'Ursel of Smissenbroek Farm:
“The cover crop disappears, but its impact remains: better structure, richer biology, deeper resilience. This feels like a powerful metaphor for how forward-looking companies invest … Good soil doesn’t happen by accident. Neither do sustainable, future-proof companies. The question is the same in both cases: Are we willing to invest today in what will nourish tomorrow?”
Opportunities
- Domaine de Graux is hiring a Sales Manager
- Ardo is hiringfor open positions including MultiSkilled Engineer.
- Farm for Good is hiring for two internship roles.
- AgFunder’s portfolio companies have roles available from Research Technician to Senior Account Executive.
- Buoyant Ventures’ portfolio has 43 roles available including Director of Engineering and Project Manager.
- Omnivore’s portfolio has 241 jobs listed across 31 different companies.
- Synthesis Capital is accepting applications for three-month 2026 Internship Programme located at their London office.