Lithuania’s Climate Tech HeavyFinance closes €3m seed round

By Gloria Methri

HeavyFinance, a climate tech investment marketplace for the agricultural industry, has raised €3 million in its seed funding round, led by VC Practica Capital.

A European FinTech tackling the climate crisis, HeavyFinance provides financing and loan schemes for companies in the sustainable agriculture sphere. Its goal is to remove one gigaton of CO2 emissions by 2050.

The investment will help the company further its European expansion, with plans to nearly double its headcount of 33 staff over the next 12 months. The firm currently has a presence in Poland, Portugal, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria,

HeavyFinance will also use the funding to accelerate the switch from conventional farming to regenerative practices, to enroll 200,000 hectares of regenerative farmland. It also aims to create direct access for businesses looking to offset their carbon footprint.

Laimonas Noreika, Founder of HeavyFinance, said, “After a successful seed round, HeavyFinance is ready to continue its expansion in the European marketplace, delivering sustainable climate investments to even more investors. Operating in additional markets and expanding our investor suite is an important step in the company’s growth and the development of new products and schemes.”

HeavyFinance’s financing supports soil health and maintenance to reduce emissions from machinery fossil fuel combustion, remove CO2 from the atmosphere, reduce N2O pollution from excessive fertiliser application, improve biodiversity, and help farms become resilient to the effects of climate change.

The company has built an infrastructure to score the borrowing capabilities of farmers and agricultural operators to facilitate transactions and administer loans more effectively.

Arvydas Bložė, Partner at Practica Capital, said, “HeavyFinance team is committed to transforming the traditional agricultural lending marketplace by incentivizing farmers to adopt sustainable and regenerative farming practices by providing them access to the necessary capital. By connecting farmers in Europe directly and introducing a proprietary soil-based carbon credit methodology, we anticipate creating a new channel for downstream corporates to offset their carbon credits and stimulating institutional capital investments in the green sector.”