The round was co-led by Industrifonden<\/a> and Nordic Foodtech VC<\/a> and supported by Future Food Fund<\/a>, PINC<\/a>, AgFunder<\/a>, and GU Ventures<\/a> and brings the firm\u2019s cumulative funding to \u20ac7.5 million ($8.3 million).<\/p>\n OlsAro said the cash injection would help it accelerate commercial work, fund new programs on drought tolerance and nitrogen-use efficiency, and support moves into other cereal crops such as rice.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cWhat convinced us about OlsAro was the scientific work behind the company, together with its field-trial results and existing seed-company partnerships. With SeedAX, OlsAro has the opportunity to turn this into a scalable platform for seed companies looking to develop climate-resilient varieties across multiple traits and markets.\u201d\u00a0 Sara Frykstrand \u00c5ngstr\u00f6m, investment manager and head of intelligence, Industrifonden<\/p>\n Farming on unfarmable land<\/p>\n Salinity affects around a tenth of the world\u2019s cropland, while heat and drought are compounding pressure on cereal production, increasing the need for varieties that can maintain yields in more challenging conditions.<\/p>\n While a fair amount of work has gone into research on salt tolerant rice<\/a>, there are few options in wheat, claimed CEO El\u00e9n Fax\u00f6.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re seeing a steady reduction in the amount of cultivatable land due to soil salinity, which can mean lower yields or at worst no growth at all. This higher salinity is in part due to flooding and cyclones, but also due to the lack of freshwater, where farmers have been irrigating with saline water or brackish water, so it\u2019s a huge addressable market.\u201d<\/p>\n OlsAro is on a mission to \u201cenable farming on otherwise unfarmable land\u201d and claims it can help partners deliver meaningful increases in yield vs elite local varieties in saline soil.<\/p>\n Field trials in multiple markets<\/p>\n OlsAro\u2019s first product\u2014salinity-resilient wheat\u2014has shown an up to 41% yield increase<\/a> over a moderately salt-tolerant variety under saline conditions in Bangladesh and is now being trialed in multiple markets, Fax\u00f6 told AgFunderNews.<\/p>\n \u201cBangladesh remains one of our lead markets, and we\u2019re working with Lal Teer Seed<\/a> [the largest private biotech and seed company in Bangladesh] towards a commercial launch in 2027. Around one million hectares in Bangladesh are affected by salinity, while demand for locally grown wheat keeps rising, so the need is clear.\u201d<\/p>\n It is also conducting field trials for salt- and heat-tolerant wheat in several other markets, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cOur salt-tolerant wheat is in advanced trials in markets including Kenya and Pakistan. Other markets for salt and heat tolerance field trials are Egypt, Italy, Canada and Australia. Because our commercial varieties are developed without genetic modification, we can enter these markets without GM regulation hurdles.\u201d<\/p>\n In India, OlsAro has been working with partners including DCM Shriram<\/a>, the largest player in proprietary wheat seeds in India, which has conducted trials of OlsAro salt tolerant wheat lines in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.<\/p>\n \u201cIndia is a market with significant potential for us, where we have ongoing collaborations, including field trials of our climate-resilient wheat,\u201d said Fax\u00f6. \u201cWith close to seven million hectares of salt-affected soils and rising heat stress, the need for more resilient wheat in India is growing.\u201d<\/p>\n OlsAro\u2019s varieties are designed to outperform conventional wheat at 4\u20138 deciSiemens (dS\/m) per meter and up to 10 dS\/m, she explained. <\/p>\n \u201cThat range runs from moderately to strongly saline soils, where conventional wheat starts losing a lot of its yield. It\u2019s also where a large share of salt-affected farmland sits, so even moderate gains there can bring land back into productive use.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe have spent years proving that we can identify and develop genetics that perform under some of the conditions putting the greatest pressure on agriculture. This round is about turning that capability into a platform that seed companies can use repeatedly. \u00a0El\u00e9n Fax\u00f6, CEO, OlsAro<\/p>\n According to Fax\u00f6, OlsAro has two development paths that can be deployed depending on the regulatory landscape in markets it is targeting.<\/p>\n The first is what she calls a \u201cpopulation-based approach\u201d using EMS mutagenesis<\/a>, \u201cwhere we treat the seeds with a specific substance to introduce very high genetic diversity. We can then commercialize varieties with desired traits from screening in our populations.<\/p>\n \u201cThe advantage is that it\u2019s non-GM globally, so we can target any market without being considered GM.\u201d<\/p>\n OlsAro\u2019s second development path is gene editing, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cFor trait discovery, we use AI to screen down on the SNPs [single nucleotide polymorphisms or genetic variations] of interest for our target traits, then the next step is to go for integrating the trait via gene editing or our population-based approach in local elite varieties. The strength of our AI is that we have plenty of proprietary data that we can feed the AI system with, in addition to open-source data.\u201d<\/p>\n Underpinning this is a \u201cdatabase of genomic data, field data, transcriptomics and so on. And then we also have AI that enables us to speed development that we are continuously building on,\u201d added Fax\u00f6.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we speak about a population-based approach, it\u2019s both forward and reverse, which means that we both do phenotypic screening (looking at the physical traits or characteristics of a plant) from within the populations to find the variety or the line of interest with a certain trait. We also do genotypic screening (looking at the DNA of the plant) based on AI-derived traits we have identified from within the population for variety development.\u201d<\/p>\n Further reading<\/p>\n With trials underway in multiple markets, OlsAro takes salt-tolerant wheat closer to market<\/a><\/p>\n![\"OlsAro](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/OlsAro-Bangladesh-field-trials-Image-credit-OlsAro.png\")
Fields trials in Bangladesh. Image credit: OlsAro
\nTwo development paths depending on regulatory landscape<\/p>\n