iGrow Digest: Agriculture, Energy & Water Investment News

A Paris-founded nuclear developer raised $247M and chose Nasdaq over Europe to list

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 09:00:00 -0500

A Paris-founded reactor company just rang the bell in New York — and more than a billion dollars moved across energy, water and agriculture in five days.

newcleo closed its business combination with NewHold Investment Corp III, raising $247 million in gross proceeds and listing on the Nasdaq Global Select Market as "NWCL". The lead-cooled fast-reactor and recycled-fuel developer is now valued at roughly $2.4 billion and has passed $1 billion in total funding, earmarked for its Italian demonstrator and a reactor rollout across the U.S. and Europe.

Also this week: Vanguard Renewables agreed to buy Generate Upcycle's five North American sites from Generate Capital, creating a 19-site, continent-leading food-waste-to-RNG platform closing October 1; H2O America cleared regulators to acquire the Cibolo Valley wastewater system near Canyon Lake, Texas, more than doubling its wastewater connections to serve about 90,000 people; Titan International agreed to sell its ITM undercarriage business to Italy's USCO S.p.A. for roughly $285 million; Standlee and Anderson Hay combined as Standlee-Anderson; Form Energy closed a $270 million Barclays-led credit facility expandable to $1 billion; Anyang Indorama Gases signed a ~$358 million (RMB 2.4 billion) loan led by OCBC Bank; Rainmaker raised a $100 million Series B for cloud seeding; SMT Energy secured up to $268 million from Climate Adaptive Infrastructure; and ADM said it will bring more than 800,000 tons a year of engineered CO2 removal to the voluntary carbon market with partner Tallgrass.

This week's premium edition, Under Glass, takes the greenhouse sector apart by the numbers: $249.7 million across 12 deals year-to-date, ownership changes doubled to ten, partnerships past forty, and activity spread from 16 countries to 23.

In this episode:
(00:00) Cold Open
(00:28) The Impact Scorecard
(01:32) Corporate and Financial Shifts
(06:05) Innovation and Public Strategy
(09:53) Market Signals and Operations
(11:02) Close

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Corteva's seed business becomes Vylor on October 1, chasing $1 billion in wheat by 2040

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 09:00:00 -0500

A 100-year-old crop giant is cutting itself in half — and the new seed company says wheat alone is a $1 billion business waiting to happen.

Corteva's board approved the separation of its seed unit into a new independent company, Vylor, clearing an October 1 split into two publicly traded agriculture firms. Vylor says its hybrid wheat platform remains on track for a 2027 launch, projecting $500 million in North America wheat revenue by 2035 and $1 billion by 2040, with next-generation soybean traits targeting another $500 million on the same timeline. Days later, BASF mandated Citi, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan for a mid-2027 IPO of its Agricultural Solutions unit — two of the industry's biggest players betting focus beats scale.

Also this week: Greenly and Normative merged into what they call the world's largest carbon-accounting software provider; Crane Company agreed to buy Trillium Pumps US for $240 million; Mazama Energy raised $135 million for engineered geothermal; IDEXX Laboratories acquired veterinary AI startup CoVetAI, with co-founder Yannick Bloem staying on; NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy pledged 1,000 Virginia jobs and a Richmond co-headquarters tower to win regulators; Robigo closed a Series A led by Leaps by Bayer; Branch Energy raised $33 million; BFG Supply Co. set an auction date after its August Chapter 11; Hitachi Energy committed $528 million to a transformer plant in Gallman, Mississippi; ENGIE North America will supply 500-plus megawatts to Oracle's Texas data centers; and CrossBoundary Energy's 233 megawatt Kamoa solar-plus-storage project in the DRC reached full commercial operation 16 months after signing.

Want the full deal-by-deal breakdown? Our premium edition, Thin Harvest, tracks August's sharp cooldown: $670 million across 25 funding actions, down roughly 65% from July's $1.89 billion, with debt facilities and government programs carrying most of the capital.

In this episode:
(00:00) Cold Open
(00:27) The Impact Scorecard
(01:31) Corporate and Financial Shifts
(04:48) Innovation and Public Strategy
(06:01) Market Signals and Operations
(09:18) Close

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Agreena signed a 4.45 million-tonne soil-carbon deal across 1.6 million hectares in Kazakhstan

Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Two reactor developers hit the public markets in the same week — and the largest farmland carbon deal ever disclosed landed in Kazakhstan.

Holtec Nuclear filed to go public on Nasdaq, seeking up to roughly $900 million at a valuation near $10.2 billion for its spent-fuel storage and SMR business. Days earlier, Texas-based HGP Intelligent Energy — building reactors that follow data-center load — agreed to a $1.2 billion SPAC merger with Meshflow Acquisition Corp. Both are pitched explicitly at AI data-center power demand.

Also this week: Franklin Electric bought Cat Pumps for $350 million cash plus a $50 million earnout; Mitti Labs signed Google to up to 1 million rice-methane carbon credits, the largest offtake of its kind on record; Agreena disclosed a 4.45 million-tonne soil-carbon agreement across 1.6 million hectares in Kazakhstan; Wint raised a $36 million Series D led by LIP Ventures and Inven Capital; the DOE closed a loan of up to $1.9 billion for NextEra Energy to restart the 615 MW Duane Arnold plant; Missouri American Water closed its $34.5 million purchase of Neosho's systems, adding about 10,800 customers; Ecobat exited lithium recycling, selling its Casa Grande, Arizona plant; Georgia Power won approval for 1,137 MW of solar; Envocore was picked for a $129 million program to replace 1.5 million water meters across Puerto Rico; Corteva and Globachem formed a 50/50 crop-protection JV; and Smackover Lithium reported a ~$5.0 billion after-tax NPV for its first East Texas project.

This week's paid edition, Thin Harvest, strips the ocean out of iGrow's August ledger: $670 million across 25 funding actions in land-based agriculture, down sharply from July's $1.89 billion, with debt desks and government ministries writing the biggest checks.

In this episode:

(00:00) Cold Open

(00:29) The Impact Scorecard

(01:44) Corporate and Financial Shifts

(03:30) Innovation and Public Strategy

(04:54) Market Signals and Operations

(09:46) Close

Connect with Us!

Be sure to subscribe to our other shows:

Vertical Farming Podcast: https://vertical-farming-podcast.captivate.fm/listen

Greenhouse Success Stories: https://greenhouse-success-stories.captivate.fm/listen

AgTech Digest: https://agtech-digest.captivate.fm/listen

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Flex is buying EPC Power for $4.4 billion, the week's clearest bet on grid hardware

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 09:00:00 -0500

The week's biggest deal wasn't software or AI — it was a $4.4 billion bet on the boxes that convert electrons.

Flex agreed to acquire EPC Power for $4.4 billion, absorbing the North American maker of grid-scale inverters and power-conversion systems used in utility solar and storage — the unglamorous hardware that has become the real bottleneck as AI data centers and electrification push demand higher. Alongside it, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners paid roughly $1.1 billion for Australia's Gawara Baya wind-plus-battery project, and Orrön Energy completed its merger with Cloudberry Clean Energy to form a ~2.1 TWh Nordic independent power producer.

Also this week: Fervo Energy signed a record 396 MW geothermal deal with Google; Missouri American Water closed its $34.5 million Neosho water and wastewater acquisition; Adecoagro completed its ~$148 million purchase of the Caarapó Mill from Raízen; Odyssey Energy Solutions raised $74 million and Gridsight a $26 million Series B led by Insight Partners; Corvus Robotics raised $20 million led by Catalyst Investors for warehouse inventory drones, while Japan's Sunshiki closed a pre-seed for seaweed-based cattle-methane feed; TXNM Energy priced a $400 million stock offering and Olam's ofi raised a $100 million private note; Ecobat sold its lithium-recycling business including its Casa Grande, Arizona operations; Studsvik picked GE Vernova Hitachi and Samsung C&T for 1.2 GW in Sweden; Chobani committed $1.2 billion to a Pennsylvania dairy campus; and ProLogium began mass production of a 381 Wh/kg solid-state battery.

The premium AgTech Intelligence Brief, Root Deal, goes deeper on CropX's biggest acquisition yet, Indigo Agriculture's ENAI spinoff, BFG Supply's Chapter 11 filing, and NADEC's $22.7 million greenhouse deal.

In this episode:
(00:00) Cold Open
(00:33) The Impact Scorecard
(01:30) Corporate and Financial Shifts
(05:25) Innovation and Public Strategy
(07:57) Market Signals and Operations
(09:39) Close

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ArcLight just put $1 billion behind a transmission company that didn't exist last week

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:00:00 -0500

One billion dollars of equity, one brand-new transmission company — and a 54-year-old distributor filing Chapter 11 with $342.5 million in debt, in the same week.

CropX Technologies closed its eighth acquisition since 2020 and its largest ever, buying lab-testing firm SCIO to pair soil-sensing and farm-management data with lab-grade crop analysis — what it calls agriculture's first self-improving agronomic intelligence platform. Alongside it, Indigo Agriculture spun its biologicals business into a standalone company, ENAI, built around endophyte plant science, while Indigo Carbon continues under the original brand.

Also this week: ArcLight Capital Partners committed $1 billion to launch Anchor Point Transmission; BFG Supply filed for Chapter 11 with $342.5 million in debt, a $55 million DIP loan and an October 22 sale target after cutting staff from 700 to 461; Eos Energy consolidated battery production at Thorn Hill, Pennsylvania, targeting 10–15% lower conversion costs from 2027 for roughly 250 affected employees; NADEC agreed to buy Pure Harvest's six-hectare Haradh greenhouse for $22.7 million; Sisu Energy and Environmental acquired Helical Energy; Sol Systems bought the 200 MW Lumberton project from DESRI; Crux closed $215 million of tax equity behind Invenergy's 240 MW Pleasant Prairie solar project; EDF power solutions reached financial close on Oman's 120 MW JBB wind farm; Breedr raised a $27 million Series B led by Partech, TerraBlaster a $12.5 million seed, VitalFluid a $19.9 million Series A; Emvolon signed a $450 million-plus deal with Freepoint Commodities; the DOE granted Princeton NuEnergy $50 million; USDA and HHS unveiled Harvest to Hallways with up to $95 million; NANO Nuclear and Tillman Digital Gateway targeted 2+ GW for AI data centers; Sungrow energized a 200 MW/400 MWh project in 17 days; Reservoir landed a $10 million R&D partnership with John Deere; and Dole and Nature's Pride joined the WAVE Aconcagua Partnership in a Chilean valley where river flows have fallen 50% in 15 years.

The premium Trends Analysis edition — Big Ag Is Buying Its Way Into Biology — maps roughly 120 crop-protection deals logged in 2026, funding rebounding to $507 million across 15 rounds, AgBiTech and Kimitec moving into strategic hands, and FMC and Bayer restructuring chemical portfolios to fund the shift.

In this episode:
(00:00) Cold Open
(00:38) The Impact Scorecard
(01:34) Corporate and Financial Shifts
(05:38) Innovation and Public Strategy
(08:36) Market Signals and Operations
(10:36) Close

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Apollo Atomics raised $31M to shrink reactors to a fortieth of conventional size

Fri, 21 Aug 2026 09:00:00 -0500

A factory-built steam generator that shrinks a nuclear reactor to a fortieth of its normal size just pulled in $31 million — and it wasn't even the biggest capital story of the week.

Water was. Veralto agreed to pay $465 million for Cleanwater1, a US disinfection and odor-control specialist with 25,000 installed units, at roughly 17x trailing earnings. Days later, H2O America cleared its final regulatory hurdle to close a $540 million purchase of Greater Houston utility Quadvest, adding nearly 140,000 connections and making it Texas's second-largest investor-owned water utility — with Texas set to make up more than a quarter of its total service base by 2029.

Also this week: Mérieux NutriSciences is acquiring Warburg Pincus-backed Certified Group, 31 North American labs and about $300 million in annual revenue, closing in Q4; Distributed Sun anchored a $1 billion capital base behind new storage-and-microgrid platform trutility, launching with gigawatt-hour-scale assets across 14 utility territories; Ever After Foods bought Belgium's Fishway plus a $2 million strategic investment; GrubMarket made its first non-US acquisition, UK produce distributor JR Holland; Cosan is voluntarily delisting its ADSs from the NYSE to consolidate on B3; A1R water began Nasdaq trading after a $96 million PIPE anchored by Inflection Point and Southern Glazer's; Apollo Atomics raised $31 million ($26 million seed led by FCVC plus $5 million debt); Thea Energy extended its Series B with Brevan Howard Macro Venture; Mafix raised $5.4 million pre-seed led by Azolla Ventures; Computomics closed a €6.3 million Series B; Vessev raised $19 million with FlyTahoe as first US customer; Swift Current Energy lined up a $750 million credit facility; Quinbrook closed A$469 million for Supernode with CATL; SalMar won approval for $531 million in Oslo green bond listings; ROTEC won the 86-million-gallon-per-day Changi NEWater Factory 3 reverse osmosis design; and a Weed Science Society of America study put the cost of an Illinois glyphosate ban at up to $609 million a year for corn and soybean growers.

The premium AgTech Digest edition, Herd Instinct, covers EW Group's completed buyout of French biologicals maker Olmix, a $15 million Series B for Australian livestock tracker Ranchbot, and the new USDA–DHS biosecurity pact aimed at the screwworm outbreak that has already cost Florida citrus 95% of its production.

In this episode:
(00:00) Cold Open
(00:20) The Impact Scorecard
(01:40) Corporate and Financial Shifts
(05:55) Innovation and Public Strategy
(07:45) Market Signals and Operations
(10:05) Close

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Xylem is paying $1.46 billion for two pump makers, its biggest water bet of the year

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 09:00:00 -0500

Eleven acquisitions crossed the wire in a single week — and the biggest one was a $1.46 billion bet on pumps.

Xylem agreed to buy Cornell Pump and Roper Pump from industrial conglomerate Indicor for $1.46 billion, in a deal expected to close in the fourth quarter. The two brands add more than $260 million in combined revenue at 30%-plus EBITDA margins to Xylem's Water Infrastructure segment — a straightforward read on aging utilities and one-directional pump demand.

Also this week: Nuclea Energy is acquiring Moltex Energy's advanced nuclear portfolio, including the Waste to Stable Salt process, the Stable Salt Reactor-Wasteburner, the FLEX design and 80 granted patents, out of UK administration; Mazavida launched as a containerized-desalination joint venture between Kinetic7 Technologies, Aquarius Capital, PIF Energy and PIF Capital across Abu Dhabi and Houston; Doral Renewables raised $400 million in common equity from parent Doral Group for its 17 GW pipeline; Verdantas bought Pax Environmental, adding nearly 75 staff; Recurrent Energy closed $695 million for the 330 MW Cobalt Solar project and brought the 150 MW Carwarp Energy Park online early under a Microsoft power deal; Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners closed $510 million of debt on a 420 MWdc Mexican solar-plus-storage plant; Ranchbot raised a $15 million Series B and set up a U.S. holding company in Texas; Arevon energized a 300 MW/1,200 MWh battery project backed by $920 million; Jacobs won a $750 million pipeline overhaul on Utah's Strawberry High Line; Netafim launched GrowSphere FLEX for smallholders, who farm 84% of the world's total; BrightFarms landed Kroger and Costco shelves in Dallas and Atlanta; and USDA and DHS signed a memorandum pairing animal-health expertise with border security against New World screwworm.

The premium edition this week is Gene Editing Grew Up. The Genetics Land Grab Is On. — 33 database entries across crop genomics, science and seeds since mid-May, from Tropic's acquisition of Rahan Meristem to Corteva spinning out its seed-and-genetics arm as Vylor.

In this episode:
(00:00) Cold Open
(00:34) The Impact Scorecard
(01:33) Corporate and Financial Shifts
(05:31) Innovation and Public Strategy
(08:14) Market Signals and Operations
(09:43) Close

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IGD001: Current Affairs

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Indoor farming's harshest lesson yet, dealmaking across three continents, and $263 million flowing into grid storage.

80 Acres Farms raised $390 million across six rounds and became one of the largest vertical farms in the United States. This week it began winding down, unable to line up fresh capital — a blunt reminder that indoor-growing economics remain brutal.

That's the lead story in the very first iGrow Digest: energy, water and agriculture in one quick listen. Also this week — Farmmi moves on Brazil's soybean and sugar trade with an all-stock bid for Four Seasons Holding Group; Aquatech extends into Middle East water treatment by acquiring Metito Chemical Solutions; Boralex clears its final approvals to go private at $37.25 a share; Frontier Power raises $263 million and picks up an 800 megawatt-hour battery project in Texas; and Ørsted switches on 500 megawatt-hours of storage in Needville, Texas.

Want the deeper numbers? This week's premium edition, Seed Capital, breaks down agriculture's inputs layer — seeds, genetics, biologicals and fertilizer — with a full year-over-year read on 6 M&A deals, 23 funding rounds, 33 partnerships and 17 product launches. Read the full edition.

In this episode:

(00:00) Cold Open

(00:25) The Scorecard

(01:15) The Big Deals

(02:21) Powering Down

(02:55) Follow the Money

(04:03) Around the Sectors

(06:28) Quick Hits

(07:19) Close

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Be sure to subscribe to our other shows:

Vertical Farming Podcast: https://vertical-farming-podcast.captivate.fm/listen