Summary

• InSoil has secured a €120m senior secured credit facility from Pollen Street.
• The facility is backed by an EIF guarantee under InvestEU and will support lending to agricultural SMEs.
• Climate transition in farming depends on practical finance, underwriting, measurement, and adoption infrastructure.

InSoil has secured a €120m senior secured credit facility from Pollen Street Capital to expand lending for European agricultural SMEs adopting more sustainable farming practices.

The Vilnius-based climate finance company said the facility is one of the largest private credit commitments to sustainable agriculture lending in Europe. The underlying loans benefit from a European Investment Fund guarantee under InvestEU, the EU programme designed to mobilise investment into policy priorities including sustainability, competitiveness, and innovation.

InSoil provides mid-term debt capital for agricultural SMEs, with a focus on practices such as no-till cultivation, cover cropping, diversified crop rotation, and reduced synthetic fertiliser use. The company combines finance with agronomic and environmental measurement, putting it between farms, investors, and public policy goals.

The climate technology angle here is largely financial. Europe’s farming transition will not be delivered by software dashboards or policy targets alone. Farmers need working capital, equipment finance, credible measurement, and repayment structures that match agricultural cash flows. Many agricultural SMEs operate with thin margins, volatile input costs, and weather risk, which can make transition investment difficult even when long-term benefits are plausible.

The EIF guarantee changes the risk equation by offering structural protection to the lender and facility provider. It does not remove credit risk, but it can make private capital more willing to finance markets that traditional banks may treat cautiously. Pollen Street gains exposure to a speciality finance market with policy support, while InSoil gains balance sheet capacity to scale lending without relying only on venture equity.

The business challenge is proving that regenerative and sustainable practices can be underwritten at scale. Carbon claims, soil health metrics, yield impacts, input savings, and long-term land value are difficult to measure consistently across fragmented agricultural markets. Weak data can turn climate finance into green branding. Strong data can help lenders price risk more accurately and farmers make transition decisions with clearer economics.

Companies such as InSoil may become more important than their size suggests because they sit between policy ambition and farm-level adoption. They translate climate and soil goals into loans, documentation, and measurable actions. That model depends on trust: farmers must believe the finance is practical, investors must trust the environmental and credit data, and public bodies must see that guarantees are mobilising additional investment rather than subsidising business as usual.

The deal also shows how climate technology is broadening. Some of the most consequential transition businesses may be financial infrastructure providers that make fragmented sectors investable.

Europe’s agricultural transition will be slow if it depends only on grants and voluntary pledges. InSoil’s facility points to a more operational phase, where climate ambition has to pass through credit committees, farm accounts, and measurable changes in land management.