EcoNomad Solutions Raises £400k to Scale Farm Waste-to-Energy Technology

EcoNomad Solutions, a Harpenden-based agricultural technology company, has raised £400,000 (approximately €466,000) to expand deployment of its on-farm waste-to-energy system. The investment comprises £230,000 from the British Design Fund together with an Innovate UK Investor Partnership grant and further support from existing investor Beeches Group.

Founded in 2018, the company builds the BioNomad, a small-scale anaerobic digester designed for livestock smallholdings. According to EcoNomad, the unit captures methane that would otherwise be released, converts organic waste into biogas for heating, cooking or electricity, and produces biofertiliser that reduces reliance on purchased chemical inputs.

What the funding will support

The company said the capital will fund product development and commercial scale-up across the United Kingdom before expansion into Europe and emerging markets. Over the next several years EcoNomad intends to develop the BioNomad into a largely automated system requiring less operator intervention.

EcoNomad reports that the technology is deployed on more than ten farms in the United Kingdom, with further installations in Africa, and that it has run trials with insect farms, food waste streams and combined biogas, solar and wind systems charging batteries for electric vehicles. Based on data provided by the company, a smallholding of around 50 cows may reduce combined energy and fertiliser expenditure by several thousand pounds a year, depending on farm operations and usage. Its target customers are dairy, beef, pig and poultry operations, including off-grid rural communities.

Founder and chief executive Dr Ilan Adler said small farms are frequently excluded from renewable energy options available to larger operators, and that the objective is to make waste-to-energy practical at that scale. Damon Bonser, chief executive of the British Design Fund, said the company's approach to decentralised anaerobic digestion could deliver meaningful impact for small farms internationally.

Why it matters for private capital

Most anaerobic digestion capacity is built for large agricultural or municipal feedstock volumes, leaving smaller holdings without an economic route to compliance as slurry and methane rules tighten. Distributed climate infrastructure of this kind typically produces modest unit economics and depends on volume, grant support and equipment financing rather than technology risk — a profile closer to industrial equipment than to venture-stage software, and one that suits patient capital with a defined impact mandate.