Niklas and his co-founder Joel saw a need for better data infrastructure in the food system, leading them starting Improvin’. The company has already supported traceability and sustainability efforts across 500K tons of food, enough to feed 400K people, and Improvin’ aims to enable the reduction of more than 100M tons of CO2e by 2030 — about 3x the current annual emissions of Switzerland. Read on to learn more about Improvin’s journey, and what’s ahead.

I grew up in the countryside, surrounded by farming relatives and family friends. That upbringing gave me a deep appreciation for agriculture early on. My academic background is in applied physics, and I started my career working at CERN in Geneva after my studies. While it was an incredible place, I became increasingly frustrated with the long research cycles and the slow pace of real-world impact.

That’s when Joel Nedar and I started exploring business ideas in agtech. Together, we built and scaled a grain marketplace in the Nordics over three years. During that journey, I spent a lot of time deep in commodity trading operations. We began to clearly see the need for better data infrastructure - something that could bridge the gap between farmers and their closest buyers.

That insight became the foundation for Improvin’, a company focused on building the digital backbone the industry has been missing.

A disconnected supply chain leads to no collaboration and bad business decisions.

Current agri-food supply chains are fragmented, and companies within the chain lack the data, coordination, and accountability needed to drive change where it matters most: on the farm.

The need for farm-level data and insights is urgent: up to 88% of agri-food companies’ emissions originate from agriculture and land use.

However, due to disconnected supply chains, it is currently nearly impossible to track practices used in agriculture at scale. This fragmentation leads to missing or unreliable data, making it difficult to align incentives, engage suppliers, or enforce contracts across the supply chain.

Even as regulatory pressure fluctuates, the demand for high-quality farm-level data continues to grow. Increasingly, commercial contracts are starting to include data requirements. This paves the way for a new industry standard in how value is determined for agricultural commodities that, for centuries, have been traded primarily on volume and basic quality metrics.

Regardless of the goal - whether it's improving climate performance, reducing sourcing risk, or enhancing product transparency - scalable, value chain data is the foundational layer for informed decision-making.

Yet the industry still lacks purpose-built tools to collect, process, and operationalize this scattered data into trusted, actionable outcomes. Without that infrastructure, food systems will continue to fall short on supply, sustainability, and resilience.

Infrastructure in the supply chain ensures interoperability and leads to smarter business decisions.

Improvin’s digital infrastructure enables agri-food companies to collect, verify, and share data across fragmented supply chains - unlocking visibility and coordination at scale.

Our platform supports food brands, processors, and cooperatives in gathering consistent, per-farm data to improve climate performance, reduce sourcing risk, and meet growing demands for transparency.

We solve three fundamental barriers:

Directly from the inception of the company, Improvin’ has adopted an AI-first approach to data collection, aggregation, and output analysis, built to work with both structured and schematic solutions, as well as unstructured data sources. With this approach, we’ve already created an unprecedented data layer. This becomes the system of record for our clients in the food industry to take smarter business decisions, by integrating open data sources with proprietary data in a both secure and scalable way.

Needless to say, our technology is built for scalability, meaning that it can be applied across the full supply chain - regardless of sourcing model, setup, or geography - ensuring consistent, high-quality data at a global scale.

Furthermore, it has been designed and built with commodity sourcing operations as a foundational focus. We streamline the process of gathering and managing supplier data by offering seamless integrations with farm management systems, ERPs, and other existing IT systems.

We have put significant effort into creating an exceptional user experience. Our platforms are purpose-built to be intuitive and easy to use for all actors in the agri-food supply chain, from farmers to corporate sustainability teams, making data collection, collaboration, and insights clear and actionable at every level.

This design-first approach was recognized with the prestigious iF Design Award Gold 2024, celebrating the quality and clarity of our user interface.

Our ambition is to make high-quality, interoperable data the foundation of global agri-food trade and supply chains.

By enabling companies to collect, verify, and share farm-level data at scale, we unlock the ability to take coordinated, system-wide action on some of the most pressing challenges in food and agriculture.

So far, our platform has supported traceability and sustainability efforts across more than 500,000 tonnes of food, enough to feed 400,000 people annually. With our infrastructure already live in 14 markets, we are well-positioned to expand this impact globally.

Looking ahead to 2030, our goal is to enable the reduction of more than 100 million tonnes of CO₂e. That is approximately three times the current annual emissions of Switzerland. This progress will be driven by actionable data that supports smarter sourcing, better supplier collaboration, and credible sustainability claims.

Beyond emissions, our work supports broader systems change by helping the industry move from fragmented, reactive approaches to connected, data-driven supply chains. This shift is critical for long-term progress on several UN Sustainable Development Goals, including Goal 2 (Zero Hunger), Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and Goal 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production).

Improvin' operates as a B2B SaaS company. Our revenue model is based on annual licenses, with pricing tailored to the sourced volumes and the complexity of the supply chain our customers manage.

Our customers include processors who need normalized data to track the sustainability of their ingredients, agricultural cooperatives aiming to streamline data aggregation across their farm sourcing operations, and food and beverage brands that rely on verified supply chain data to generate insights and drive meaningful change.

The total addressable market for agri-food data infrastructure is estimated at $83 billion, reflecting the scale of opportunity within our focused crop and geography segments.

Growth is fueled by rising demands for climate accountability, traceability, and supply chain resilience, driving agri-food companies to move from fragmented tools to scalable, interoperable data solutions.

We differentiate by combining usability, data veracity, and scalability across complex sourcing networks. While the broader landscape includes remote sensing providers, farm management system extensions, carbon accounting platforms, and regenerative agriculture programs, Improvin’ is purpose-built to connect all supply chain stakeholders through a single system focused on operational efficiency and high-quality data interoperability.

Over the past year, we’ve achieved 4x year-over-year revenue growth, reflecting strong demand and market fit.

Looking ahead, the next 2-3 years will be shaped by continued commercial growth and deepening impact across the value chain. With a highly engaged customer base and increasing urgency around supply chain data, we see strong momentum ahead.

We are actively expanding our operations across Europe and the U.S., as demand accelerates for standardized, scalable sustainability data in agri-food sourcing.

Our focus will remain on strengthening our platform’s capabilities: enhancing data interoperability, automation, and user experience, while continuing to build a team that can support and scale our mission globally.

Improvin’ raised a €3.5M seed round in 2023, led by Pale Blue Dot, with participation from Dynamo Ventures, FoodBridge (Axel Johnson), and PINC (Paulig).

We have also received €1.3M in grant funding from the European Union through the EIP-AGRI program (European Innovation Partnership for Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability), as well as from the Swedish innovation agency Vinnova.

We're always eager to connect with people who can help us accelerate our mission. Right now, we're especially interested in:

If you see an opportunity to collaborate, contribute, or grow with us - we’d love to hear from you!

You can reach out on LinkedIn or via our website, or email me.