2024 has been a game-changing year for HeavyFinance, marked by significant milestones, strategic partnerships, and a clear focus on sustainable agriculture. From securing major investments and launching groundbreaking initiatives to expanding our impact across Europe and Ukraine, we’ve made bold strides in driving the green transition. We’ve partnered with key industry players, facilitated millions in funding, and celebrated recognition for our Green Loans and commitment to carbon farming. The road ahead is even more exciting – here’s a look at the highlights that made 2024 an unforgettable year for us.
European Investment Fund
2024 has been a remarkable year for HeavyFinance, marked by key milestones in our mission to support sustainable farming. A standout achievement was securing a €10.5 million portfolio guarantee with the European Investment Fund (EIF), providing essential financing to small and medium-sized farms to help them adopt greener practices and meet EU climate goals. Additionally, we launched a €50 million private credit fund, backed by €20 million from the EIF, to assist agricultural SMEs across Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Portugal in their decarbonisation efforts. This funding is empowering farmers to implement soil-friendly techniques, such as no-till farming, and improve sustainability across the sector.
Multitude
In 2024, HeavyFinance partnered with Multitude Bank, a Maltese wholesale bank, to secure a €14 million investment into sustainable agricultural loans. This partnership is focused on supporting small and medium-sized agricultural businesses in Europe as they transition to more sustainable practices, including regenerative agriculture. The investment is backed by a unique portfolio guarantee from the European Investment Fund (EIF), ensuring that the funds will be used to empower over 500 European farms in their sustainability journey. Within the first week of the partnership €1 million was distributed to farmers. By 2025, the full deployment of this capital is expected.
Significant Partnerships
As we prepare to sell our first carbon credits, we have significantly expanded our partnerships with leading marketplaces where our projects will be listed for carbon credit buyers. One of these key partnerships is with Ceezer, a prominent German marketplace, which will help us reach a broader range of potential buyers and create greater market visibility for our credits.
In addition to marketplace collaborations, we’ve forged powerful alliances with major industry players. Linas Agro, one of the largest agribusiness companies in the Baltics, has joined forces with HeavyFinance to transition 300,000 hectares of agricultural land in Lithuania to regenerative farming practices. This partnership is a significant step toward creating a more sustainable agricultural landscape. Similarly, we’ve teamed up with Qemetica to remove 500 kilotonnes of CO2, furthering our mission to drive impactful climate action.
Financing 65M in Loans
In 2024, HeavyFinance reached a milestone by facilitating over €65 million in funding to support the transition of farmers to sustainable and regenerative farming practices since our inception. Of this, over €15 million was financed by our growing international investor community just in the year 2024, demonstrating strong support for the green transition in agriculture.
What sets us apart from other programmes is our holistic approach: we not only give farmers access to the carbon credits market, but provide financing to support them in transitioning to regenerative agriculture. We make it easier for farmers to contribute in the journey to net zero.
Largest Soil Sampling Campaign
In 2024, we conducted our largest soil sampling campaign in Poland to date, with an impressive 2,470 samples collected. This initiative is a cornerstone of our commitment to transparency and accuracy in measuring organic carbon levels in the soil. To ensure the highest precision, we are partnering with a globally renowned soil sampling company, employing advanced techniques to measure soil at a depth of 60 cm. This deeper analysis allows us to gain a comprehensive understanding of the soil’s health and carbon storage capacity.
These soil samples, along with other crucial data, form the foundation for our calculations on the potential number of carbon credits we can generate. By using scientifically rigorous methods, we ensure that our carbon farming program remains robust, transparent, and aligned with global standards, providing reliable results for both farmers and buyers in the carbon credit market.
Farm Visits
In 2024, we expanded our agronomy team to provide more on-the-ground support, allowing us to visit and work more closely with farmers in our Carbon Farming Program. What truly sets us apart from other programs is our approach to collaboration—we view our relationship with farmers as a true partnership. By working hand-in-hand with them, we focus on enhancing soil health and increasing organic carbon levels, which in turn helps generate more carbon credits.
This year, our farmers also had the opportunity to host important visits, not only from our agronomists but also from program auditors and potential buyers of the carbon credits. These interactions are crucial in fostering transparency and building strong, lasting relationships within the carbon credit market, ensuring that both farmers and buyers benefit from the program’s success.
Expansion to Ukraine
In 2024, HeavyFinance also took a major step in advancing regenerative agriculture by partnering with Ukrainian agricultural company Agsolco to restore 300,000 hectares of farmland in Ukraine’s western and central regions. This partnership aims to transform the land into regenerative farms and certify it for soil-based carbon credits. Given Ukraine’s historically rich chernozem soil, the shift to regenerative practices has immense carbon sequestration potential, with preliminary estimates suggesting up to 757.7 million tonnes of CO2 can be removed.
Conferences Attended
From the European Climate Summit to PRECOP, in 2024, we were everywhere, participating in key industry events, showcasing our expertise and commitment to sustainable agriculture. At Innovate4Climate, we were invited as experts on a panel hosted by EcoAct, alongside UNDO and Carbonapp, where we discussed various carbon credit projects across Europe.
At the European Agriculture Forum and other national events, we shared our insights as specialists in regenerative agriculture. Notably, our agronomy team presented at the first European Carbon Farming Summit in Valencia, where we highlighted the positive outcomes of our Lithuanian Carbon Farming Program. Our findings demonstrated the resilience of regenerative farming fields to climate change impacts, such as drought. We’re excited to participate in the next edition of the summit in Dublin in 2025.
Additionally, we were invited to contribute in a series of webinars by EIT Food on the Food and Water Nexus. During these sessions, our representative discussed the importance of regenerative farming not only for improving food production but also for enhancing water quality in natural reserves, emphasizing how farming practices impact the water in our rivers, lakes, and seas.
Awards & Recognition
In 2024, HeavyFinance received significant recognition for its contributions to sustainability and innovation. We were honoured with the Fintech Impact of the Year award at the Lithuanian Fintech Awards, highlighting our commitment to driving positive change in the agricultural and financial sectors.
Additionally, our Green Loans initiative was recognised at the World Summit Awards 2024 national competition in Lithuania, where it was celebrated as the best innovative solution for the environment.
As you can see, 2024 was an eventful year and we have no plans to press the breaks anytime soon! We want to take this opportunity to thank everyone that made this year so eventful and impactful, from the farmers joined us on their sustainability journey, new partners who see the potential for us to achieve great things in the future, our investor community for betting on us, and most importantly the entire HeavyFinance team for constantly seeing the opportunity for further development and going and grabbing it.
Thank you, and stay tuned for 2025!
All the best,
The HeavyFinance Team
