agriportance: The development of the company

agriportance GmbH was founded with the vision of bringing more climate protection to agriculture. At the same time, an economic solution for the future was to be developed together with the farmers - the founding story tells the beginning, the status quo and the vision for the future.

Thorsten Rohling as a software developer and Henning Dicks as a farmer embarked on the journey together with many companions and started the „agriportance“ project in 2020. Since then, agriportance and its partners have experienced many hurdles, great successes and exciting new experiences almost every day.

Vision and mission for the energy market of tomorrow

After many discussions with customers and intensive development work, our vision as agriportance has solidified. We want to be the market pioneer for renewable energies from agriculture. To achieve this, we are focussing on the currently flourishing biomethane market. This creates a climate-friendly source of energy that is independent of natural gas imports. We are currently leading the way in shaping the European market with an innovative business model developed with the target group.

An IT specialist and a farmer in search of ideas

In the early days of agriportance, we were a small team consisting of the founders Thorsten and Henning. We were employed by companies in Münster. Thorsten as a software developer and Henning as an agricultural journalist. We emerged from a weekend and after-work project during the first coronavirus lockdown.

Our companions and supporters were various agricultural businesses who were passionate about the agriportance vision and some of whom also became our first customers. These included family farms from the Münsterland region as well as larger companies from all over Germany. They helped, for example, with the critical assessment of business models and with their network in the sector.

In the early days, we looked at a variety of possible business models. These included the topics of humus formation, emission reduction in animal husbandry and the use of biochar.

Biogas and biomethane was one of many topics on a long list, but we quickly realised that, on the one hand, it was the topic of more climate protection in agriculture and, on the other, it was also the most likely to correspond to a scalable and possible business model. Collaboration with potential customers was therefore the key to developing and testing the right idea for agriportance.

First paying customers as an important milestone

When Henning spoke to biogas producers, he quickly realised: „Regardless of whether I was talking to a farmer from Münsterland or a municipal utility from Bavaria, there were always two recurring problems that needed to be solved.“

The first problem concerned the complex and bureaucratic greenhouse gas balance sheet that producers have to draw up in order to participate in the new and lucrative market.

Many people described the second problem to us as follows: „I received my EEG remuneration for almost 20 years - it just went through.“ How does that work with biomethane?“ Questions were frequently asked about potential customers, contract design and the quality categorisation of biomethane. However, when we spoke to the other side, i.e. energy and mineral oil companies as customers, we also realised that these companies do not have the right network or approach to be able to reach the other side easily.

From these discussions, we developed our solution, a software that producers can use to solve all issues relating to sustainability certification and behind it a match-making process that links producers and buyers fairly and efficiently. This enabled us to acquire the first paying customers in the pilot phase in summer 2021 and thus start with relevant company growth.

Scaling and market growth of the young company agriportance

After the pilot phase, we succeeded in quickly establishing ourselves on the German biomethane market. We were able to acquire not just a handful of pilot customers, but over 100 paying customers after just a few months. And not just from Germany, but also from a large number of other European countries. The first employees joined Thorsten and Henning. As important pillars, they continue to drive the company's development to this day. Our agriportance team now includes over 30 employees and further positions are already being advertised. A little fact on the side: our offices were generally already too small when we moved in. We started out in a co-working space and, after moving to various small offices, we are now working in a bright, modern and open office with 200 m² of office space near Münster harbour.

The market pioneer for biomethane in Europe

European, digital and customer-centred - these are three keywords that are currently driving us forward. This is because we see a key strength of biomethane in being able to enable the decentralised production of a green natural gas substitute and the circular economy throughout Europe. However, scaling the biomethane market is only possible with a digital infrastructure that provides an optimal development basis for all market players. Thanks to our customer proximity in the past and in the future, market players also receive exactly what they need.