Gravity Gardens, a Nijmegen-based AgTech startup, has secured a €2.6 million Seed round to bring a dry, chemical-free seed activation process to market — a dry method that aims to improve crop establishment without adding water, chemicals or coating to the seed.
The round combines equity investment with EFRO regional development funding and was supported by VP Capital, Brightlands Venture Partners (BVP) and Graduate Ventures alongside a group of private investors. This Seed round follows earlier backing from StartLife and a Rabobank innovation loan, bringing the startup’s total amount raised to more than €3 million.
“The most impactful innovations are often the ones that improve the foundations of a system. Seeds are exactly that foundation. Gravity Gardens has developed a technology that could make stronger crop establishment accessible to many more farmers while using fewer natural resources. That is what makes this investment so compelling,” said Erica van Eeghen, Senior Manager Ventures, VP Capital
Founded in 2024 by Paulino Valdés (Founder and CEO) and Robin Le Vigouroux (co-founder and CTO), Gravity Gardens says its seed activation process uses no water, no chemicals and leaves no coating on the seed. The company highlighted that its technology was developed with support from the European Space Agency Business Incubation Centre (ESA BIC) Noordwijk.
“Improving a seed before it goes in the ground, what the industry calls seed activation technology, is not a new idea. Seed companies have known for decades that a seed lot given the right treatment emerges faster, more evenly, and holds up better in a difficult seedbed. The problem was never whether it works. The problem is what it takes to do it,” the company said in its press release.
Dry seed activation versus traditional priming
The Dutch startup explained that conventional priming is wet: the process involves hydrating the seed, holding it under controlled conditions, and drying it again, thereby introducing handling constraints, capacity limits, and costs at every step. Gravity Gardens says those economics have only ever closed on high-value vegetable and flower seed, and that for the overwhelming majority of crops by volume seed activation has not been viable.
According to the company, removing water from the process changes the economics because there is no hydration stage to control and nothing to dry off afterwards. Where priming has been understood in the industry as a way to improve germination and uniformity, Gravity Gardens says it is working on vigour: how fast and how strongly a crop establishes itself once it is in the ground.
Paulino Valdés, Founder and CEO of Gravity Gardens, said, “Every seed company in Europe has a seed lot sitting in storage that germinates at grade A quality on the bench and then disappoints in the field. Germination matters, but it is not the number that decides your season. Vigour is, and vigour is the first thing you lose as a lot ages or as the spring turns against you.
“Priming has been the industry’s answer for forty years and it is a good answer, but it is a wet one, and the cost and complications that come with that are why it only ever made sense for a handful of high-value crops. What we have is dry, which takes those costs out. Cheap enough for field crops, and aimed at the thing that actually decides the season. That combination is what has not existed before.”
Gravity Gardens reports that its technology has undergone seven external trials, including validation experiments conducted by Vertify. The company operates its own research, development and production facility in Nijmegen and runs active programmes with Vertify, HLB, Oost NL and Foodvalley, through which it accessed an SME Innovation Voucher.
“Germination is the most critical phase in plant development. Gravity Gardens’ platform stimulates the plant’s natural power, and its cost competitive technology can be applied in a wide variety of crops. We believe this is an important step towards less chemical use and the natural strengthening of plant germination,” said Marcel Zijp, Senior Investment Manager, Brightlands Venture Partners.
Funding, partnerships and next steps
The startup plans to use the new capital to enter its next phase: development of industrial-scale equipment and larger trial programmes across new crops, with market readiness targeted during 2027. It is moving toward the development of industrial-scale equipment with Demcon, the Dutch engineering group, while trial programmes continue in parallel.
