A new generation of African climate entrepreneurs is moving from the margins of sustainability investing into the centre of the global biodiversity economy, as Swiss venture accelerator Brainforest unveiled a Cohort 7 portfolio spanning regenerative agriculture, soil intelligence, carbon finance, circular nutrition and ecosystem restoration.
At the heart of the cohort are African founders building commercially scalable businesses around nature-based solutions, one of the world’s fastest-growing investment themes.
The programme comes as biodiversity finance rapidly emerges as a major frontier in global climate investing. The United Nations estimates more than $700 billion a year is needed to close the global biodiversity financing gap, while African agriculture, land restoration and ecosystem sectors are increasingly attracting climate capital seeking measurable environmental returns alongside profits.
Against that backdrop, Brainforest’s latest cohort signals a deeper shift underway. Investors are no longer treating African biodiversity ventures as aid-linked sustainability projects, but as scalable infrastructure for the future regenerative economy.
The Switzerland-based accelerator said its Venture Program selected startups working across biodiversity protection, regenerative supply chains, agricultural intelligence, carbon-linked finance and ecosystem restoration after a 10-week acceleration process focused on investor readiness, systems mapping and scaling impact.
The strongest spotlight, however, has fallen on African ventures reshaping how food systems, soil restoration and nature markets function across the continent.
In Kenya, women-led agri-tech startup Rhea is tackling one of Africa’s most overlooked agricultural bottlenecks which is delayed soil intelligence.
In many African countries, farmers wait up to two weeks for laboratory soil analysis, often missing critical planting windows and reducing yields in regions already under pressure from climate shocks, degraded land and rising fertiliser costs.
Brainforest said Rhea’s portable IoT-enabled diagnostic technology delivers soil readings in just 15 minutes through a network of trained agronomist agents operating directly within farming communities.
“Rhea Soil Health is a women-led, soil-scientist co-founded AgriTech venture delivering real-time soil diagnostics in 15 minutes via a portable IoT device and a network of trained agronomist agents, replacing the 14-day lab wait that currently blocks farmers from acting on soil data,” the company said.
The innovation lands at a critical moment for African agriculture. According to the African Development Bank, more than 65% of Africa’s arable land is degraded. At the same time, smallholder farmers who produce most of the continent’s food remain among the least digitally connected participants in the global food economy.
Brainforest framed the startup as part of a broader push toward “soil and ecosystem intelligence”, arguing that biodiversity restoration cannot happen without deeper visibility into the biological systems beneath agricultural land.
“In a field in Kenya, a farmer drops a soil sample into a small device and within fifteen minutes knows what is happening beneath their feet,” Brainforest said in unveiling the cohort.
“At the same time in Turkey, a team is mapping the invisible life of entire ecosystems. Two very different approaches. One quiet truth: we cannot heal what we cannot see.”
The Kenyan venture shares the soil intelligence cluster with Turkey’s SoilBiom Biyoteknoloji, which develops biodiversity measurement and ecosystem restoration tools for organisations seeking measurable environmental performance data.
“SoilBiom develops biodiversity-driven solutions to measure, understand, and restore ecosystems. By combining biological data with tailored interventions, we help organizations improve environmental performance and build more sustainable and resilient systems,” the company said.
Another African company drawing investor attention is Kenya’s Nasaru Naturals, which is building what it describes as the world’s first large-scale spirulina farm in Kenya’s soda lakes.
The company said it has reduced production costs by 70% through the use of naturally occurring lake nutrients and low-impact local materials, creating what it called a carbon-negative operation tied directly to local economic development.
“Nasaru Naturals is building the world’s first large-scale spirulina farm in Kenya’s soda lakes, where the algae has naturally thrived for centuries. By using native lake nutrients and locally sourced, low-impact materials, they’ve cut production costs by 70%, creating a carbon-negative operation that supports both the environment and the local economy,” the startup said.
The venture operates within what Brainforest calls “circular nutrition” systems, where natural biological processes replace extractive industrial food models.
Indonesia’s Z Bio was also selected into the cohort for its Black Soldier Fly waste-conversion ecosystem, which transforms food waste into animal feed and biofertiliser.
“ZBIO is a complete ecosystem that transforms food waste into regenerative resources. Through our closed-loop system, we convert waste into animal feed and biofertilizer, which supports local farms that, in turn, grow fresh, organic produce that comes right back to your kitchen. It’s waste that works, for your business and for the planet,” the company said.
In Ethiopia, Chakka Origins is leveraging biodiversity-linked beauty and wellness supply chains sourced from one of Africa’s richest ecological zones.
The startup works with more than 600 smallholder farmers, most of them women, across Ethiopia’s Eastern Afromontane Biodiversity Hotspot.
“Chakka Origins is the first regenerative clean beauty brand out of Ethiopia, the cradle of humankind, paying homage to its namesake. A nature-based enterprise, Chakka Origins sources, processes, and sells natural beauty and wellness products such as cosmetic oils, herbal teas, and food ingredient spices in Ethiopia as well as globally across the U.S. and Europe,” the company said.
The company enters global markets at a time when consumers are increasingly demanding traceable, ethically sourced and environmentally regenerative beauty products, a sector projected to grow sharply over the next decade as sustainability-linked procurement reshapes retail supply chains.
Meanwhile, Senegal-focused Féro B.V. is targeting degraded farmland in the Sahel through agroforestry systems and bamboo greenhouse infrastructure designed to restore soil while generating income for rural communities.
“Féro helps smallholder farmers in Senegal transform their degraded cropland into profitable agroforests combined with mid-tech bamboo greenhouses. This innovative farming method will help restore land in the Great Green Wall region of Africa and empower youth and women to build sustainable and dignified livelihoods at home,” the venture said.
The Great Green Wall initiative stretching across Africa’s Sahel region has become one of the continent’s most ambitious climate adaptation and land restoration projects as drought, desertification and food insecurity intensify.
Brainforest’s cohort also includes startups attempting to rebuild the financial architecture surrounding smallholder agriculture.
Swiss startup reilo. is converting future carbon and nature-service revenues into loan collateral for smallholder farmers.
“Smallholder farmers own billions in nature assets, yet 80% of them have no access to productive capital. We are changing that by turning nature-based carbon removals into structured loan collateral, giving 500 million smallholder farmers in the Global South access to finance while restoring nature,” Brainforest said.
Colombia’s SiembraCo focuses on digitising agricultural supply chains and improving traceability between farmers and corporate buyers.
“SiembraCo is an agritech B2B company connecting smallholder farmers with corporate buyers through virtual farming, lot-level traceability, quality control, and direct logistics. We help companies access fresher, more reliable, and more sustainable supply, while enabling farmers to increase productivity, resilience, and income through technology and regenerative practices,” Brainforest said.
Brainforest said its venture acceleration model combines philanthropy, science, entrepreneurship and indigenous knowledge systems to identify “high-impact leverage points” capable of generating systemic environmental change.
The organisation said selected founders undergo validation, strategic collaboration, investor-readiness training and scaling support before potentially entering the Brainforest investment portfolio.
The eight ventures will present to investors during Brainforest’s Pitch Event in Zurich on June 18, where startups will deliver live pitches and face questioning from a selected jury of investors and ecosystem stakeholders at Impact Hub Viadukt.
The event reflects growing investor appetite for climate technologies tied directly to food systems, biodiversity measurement and regenerative land use, sectors increasingly viewed as commercially viable rather than philanthropic.
Globally, nature-tech investment remains small compared to mainstream climate technology funding, but analysts say momentum is accelerating as governments, development finance institutions and private investors search for scalable solutions capable of addressing both climate risk and ecological collapse.
For African entrepreneurs in the cohort, the implications extend far beyond accelerator recognition.
The continent hosts nearly a quarter of the world’s biodiversity hotspots and more than 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land, yet African climate startups historically receive only a fraction of global venture capital flows.
Brainforest’s latest cohort suggests that the equation may finally be starting to shift.
