Campus resident VitalFluid closes €17.2M Series A to expand globally

VitalFluid, located at Building HTC 25, has closed a €17.2 million Series A round to accelerate the international rollout of its plasma-based crop protection technology, the company announced last week.

The round was co-led by Invest-NL and Alder Tree Investments, with Invest-NL contributing €4 million. Existing shareholders Horticoop, Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (BOM), Future Food Fund, Graduate Ventures, Innovation Industries, VDL Groep and Goeie Grutten Impact Fonds also joined. The round includes a €2.7 million innovation credit from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO). This is the second investment in two years for the startup, after they announced a €5M round in April 2024.

VitalFluid was founded in 2014 by Paul Leenders and Polo van Ooij as a spin-out from Eindhoven University of Technology. Since 2020, they have built the team and operations from High Tech Campus Eindhoven.

The idea for the technology

Van Ooij traces the idea for the technology back to a canoe trip in Uganda, where he started thinking about how to use electricity to disinfect water. That question became the basis for what the company now calls Plasma Activated Water, or PAW.

The process mimics what happens during a thunderstorm, when lightning converts water into a plasma-activated form. VitalFluid replicates this natural process to create “lightning in a box.” VitalFluid built a machine that reproduces that reaction using water, air and electricity and isolating and stabilizing the reactive nitrogen and oxygen compounds that form as a result.

Replacing chemicals with nature

Growers were already under pressure to move away from chemical fungicides, as regulations tightened and concerns grew over resistance, biodiversity and residues left on food. VitalFluid saw a way to fight the same fungal diseases chemicals were built to target but without the residue. With on-site PAW production, VitalFluid provides a natural and sustainable alternative to the pesticides used now to enhance plant health.

That alternative is now at work in fields in the UK. Growers including Hall Hunter Partnership, Angus Growers and EC Drummond have moved from pilot programs into multi-year contracts, and VitalFluid’s technology is now deployed across more than 100 hectares of commercial strawberry production in the UK.

“This investment confirms the potential of our technology to make a fundamental contribution to a more sustainable and future-proof food system,” said Erik Hertel, CEO of VitalFluid. “It allows us to accelerate our commercial rollout and give more growers access to an effective alternative to chemical crop protection.”

The new funding will go toward expanding the UK presence, entering the U.S. market for the first time and extending the technology beyond strawberries to apples and grapes. VitalFluid is also working toward broader access across the European Union.

Daan Meijer and Florentine Beelaerts van Blokland of Invest-NL’s investment team framed the raise as a bet on the sector as a whole. “With this investment, Invest-NL supports a company that contributes to the structural sustainability of agriculture. In this way, we help create a more future-proof food system.”

Homebase for breakthrough technology and innovation

VitalFluid’s steady growth shows the power of the HTCE ecosystem and what can happen when a deep tech company chooses to start, scale and stay here.

VitalFluid has grown from an idea tested in the field into a commercial operation with contracts across the UK with plans to expand to two more continents, all while remaining part of the Eindhoven ecosystem where it began.

As VitalFluid opens offices abroad, its homebase on High Tech Campus Eindhoven continues to anchor the research and development behind the technology.