Finnish cleantech company NPHarvest has been selected for up to €1.2 million in funding through Business Finland’s Deep Tech Accelerator (DTA), supporting the next phase of development and commercialisation of its nutrient recovery technology.
The phased funding package, linked to defined technical and commercial milestones, is designed to help research-driven companies scale internationally. For NPHarvest, it provides a structured pathway to move its nutrient recovery systems from industrial demonstration into repeatable, export-ready deployment.
Across Europe, rising volumes of liquid waste from anaerobic digestion and other waste-to-energy processes are creating a growing nutrient management challenge. In regions such as northern Germany, northern France and the Benelux, regulatory limits on nitrogen application mean surplus liquid digestate can no longer be spread locally, forcing operators to transport material over long distances at increasing cost.
NPHarvest’s technology targets this bottleneck by recovering nitrogen and phosphorus from liquid waste streams and converting them into usable fertiliser inputs. The approach is designed to decouple nutrient recovery from land-spreading constraints, enabling nutrients to be reused where they are agronomically and legally viable.
“In Europe, the limiting factor is no longer nutrient availability, but how and where those nutrients can be recovered and reused,” said Juho Uzkurt Kaljunen, CEO of NPHarvest. “Large volumes already exist in liquid waste streams, yet current systems struggle to turn them into inputs that can be used where they are needed. This funding allows us to scale a solution to that challenge.”
The DTA support builds on €2.2 million of earlier funding from public and private sources, including Nordic Foodtech VC and the Finnish Ministry of the Environment. During 2025, the company reached key technical milestones, including commissioning its first industrial-scale demonstrator at a waste-to-energy plant in Ankara, Türkiye.
Field trials conducted with the University of Helsinki’s Viikki research farm have also shown that recycled nitrogen and phosphorus recovered using the NPHarvest process perform on par with conventional synthetic fertilisers.
With Deep Tech Accelerator backing in place, NPHarvest will now focus on refining its technology for full-scale commercial deployment, targeting agricultural and industrial users seeking scalable, low-emission nutrient recovery solutions.
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