Biotech firm Rhizocore Technologies raises £4.5M for North American expansion

Rhizocore Technologies, a biotechnology company which uses fungi to improve tree growth and survival rates, has secured £4.5 million in investment to scale its innovative approach to forestry and woodland restoration.

The funding round was led by The First Thirty, a specialist investor in technologies to improve soil health. The round also includes participation from Scottish Enterprise, as well as from existing customer The Grosvenor Estate, one of the UK’s largest landowners. Additional investors in the round are Sand River, Generation-Re (Regenerative Agriculture Syndicate), Kibo Invest, John Thomson, and Old College Capital, the University of Edinburgh’s in-house venture investment fund.

The technology works by providing saplings with specific Ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi. Drawing on one of the world's largest living fungal libraries, Rhizocore selects the precise, high-performance species for a given site. These fungi form a symbiotic network with the roots, helping trees absorb more nutrients and water. This is especially important in the vulnerable early stages of a tree's life, underpinning survival, resilience and growth to deliver financial returns on forest assets.

The investment responds to overwhelming market validation for Rhizocore's technology. The investment will allow the company to increase supply to meet future demand with existing customers already having purchased 100% of planned 2025/26 capacity.

Plantings using RhizoPellets™ across numerous sites and involving major industry partners have delivered unprecedented results. Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) found that treated trees have shown a 97% survival rate compared to just 78% for untreated saplings, a relative 25% improvement in survival rate. And at a site owned by Trees for Life, one of the UK's leading native woodland restoration charities, Downy Birch saplings grew thirteen times faster than control and fertilised trees after 12 months.

Rhizocore, which spun out from the University of Edinburgh and Deep Science Venture’s Food & Agriculture Science Transformer (FAST) programme in 2021, now operates across more than 100 active field sites. It delivers proven growth enhancements and survival across a diverse range of environments, from clear-felled forests and former agricultural pastures to heather moorlands.

The company’s advanced technology also enables successful tree establishment on challenging terrains, including reclaimed mining land and high-altitude landscapes.

Dr Toby Parkes, founder of Rhizocore, said, “We are excited to be working with both existing and new investors, including several of our customers, who are experts in forestry and soil health. The consortium of investors participating in this round is backing our data-driven, nature-first approach to enhance the success of tree planting and the forestry sector. Our results clearly show that planting success can be increased by tapping into the belowground fertilisation superpowers of fungi.

“The fact that two of our existing customers have invested in this round is a testament to the work the Rhizocore team has put in, developing the knowledge and technology to unlock the potential of fungi to improve their returns. This capital will accelerate our business scaling plans, unlock new markets, and advance our mission of protecting, harnessing, and restoring fungal biodiversity.”

In addition to supporting expansion into North America, where 1.4 billion trees are planted annually, the new capital will be used to fund a significant increase in production capacity at Rhizocore's Scottish facility in Roslin to fulfil its growing multi-year order book across the UK and Europe.

"Our thesis at The First Thirty is that planetary and human health are one and the same—it all starts with the soil," said Antony Yousefian, General Partner at The First Thirty.

"We invest in technologies that unlock the economic value of soil health, and Rhizocore is the perfect example. Their technology demonstrates that enhancing soil biology is not only an ecological benefit, but also a powerful driver of financial returns. By making land assets more resilient and productive, Rhizocore is creating the economic incentive that will pull billions in new capital towards large-scale restoration."

The Grosvenor Estate is a real estate development and investment company which invests in food and agricultural tech companies and has a portfolio of urban and rural properties across the world. Its land holdings include the 39,000-hectare Reay Forest Estate in Sutherland.

“At Grosvenor, we believe that mitigating climate change and its impacts is vital. By taking a localised approach to enhancing and restoring our natural assets, we aim to improve the resilience of our land,” said Davy Portway, Head of Venture Investment at Grosvenor.

“Having recently completed comprehensive natural capital baselining across our rural estates, we are now developing long-term plans to leverage nature-based solutions that improve biodiversity, soil health and flood resilience. Our partnership with Rhizocore is well timed to support these ambitions, and we are particularly excited to assess the impact on belowground biomass amongst the trees we have planted along with RhizoPellets™.

“Rhizocore’s locally adapted mycorrhizal fungi solution aligns seamlessly with our sustainability goals, which aim to deliver the dual benefit of accelerating nature restoration while enhancing tree growth and planting survival rates.”

Derek Shaw, Director of Entrepreneurship and Investment at Scottish Enterprise said: “Rhizocore’s breakthrough in fungal biotechnology highlights the kind of nature-based innovation that can scale rapidly and deliver impact. This investment not only strengthens Scotland’s position in the global bioeconomy but also demonstrates how data-led approaches to soil health can unlock new commercial opportunities while restoring our natural capital and a boost to the environment too.”

Head of Forest Management Support at FLS, Gareth Waters, says the organisation now plans to expand the use of the pellets across multiple sites during the next planting season, with ongoing monitoring to assess their long-term impact.

"We are always looking for new ways to improve and adapt our forestry practices to grow more productive and resilient forests,” he said. “It is really encouraging to see that early trials in our collaboration with Rhizocore Technologies have yielded increased survival rates on a test plot at our Damside site."