Aardaia has raised €5 million to develop a new generation of crops by domesticating promising wild plant species into modern, farm-ready varieties. The round was led by Point Nine, with participation from FoodLabs, Astanor, Grey Silo Ventures, and several angel investors, and will be used to accelerate Aardaia’s crop development pipeline and build out its team and capabilities.
The company’s core thesis is that modern agriculture relies on a very small set of crops domesticated thousands of years ago, while the plant kingdom contains many wild species with valuable traits that have never been tapped for food production. Aardaia’s platform is designed to identify these species and rapidly turn them into crops suitable for farmers and the food industry.
Aardaia’s first crop is aardaker (lathyrus tuberosus), a native European legume that fixes its own nitrogen and produces a protein-rich tuber with a nutty, chestnut-like flavor. Co‑founder and CEO Padraic Flood began working with aardaker six years ago, and together with co‑founder and COO Mike Henske raised a pre‑seed round in early 2025 to scale the effort.
Today, Aardaia is growing close to one million unique aardaker plants in its fields, with thousands more in greenhouses, and initial seasons have validated the species’ agronomic and flavor potential. The new funding will help further domesticate aardaker and expand Aardaia’s pipeline of additional wild plants that can be turned into new crops tailored for future agricultural needs rather than legacy constraints.
KEY QUOTES:
“Our first crop is called aardaker (lathyrus tuberosus), a native European legume that fixes its own nitrogen and grows a protein rich tuber. It has been eaten in Europe for hundreds of years and cherished for its nutty, chestnut-like flavour.”
Padraic Flood, Co‑founder and CEO of Aardaia
