The Hashgraph Group, a Switzerland-based venture capital and technology firm supporting the Hedera blockchain network, has announced a strategic investment in agritech company AgNext Technologies.

According to details in a press release on April 7, the collaboration will see the Hedera (HBAR) blockchain network support AgNext’s growing artificial intelligence-driven agricultural solutions.  

The investment sees The Hashgraph Group join AgNext’s recent fundraising initiative led by Denmark-based Novo Holdings, but more than that, is a key integration milestone for the Hedera blockchain ecosystem.

In particular, AgNext is looking to leverage Hedera’s distributed ledger technology to digitize trust in the supply chain ecosystem, including around insurance and traceability across the food supply chains. 

“With this strategic co-investment alongside Novo Holdings, we look forward to embarking on the tech-enablement journey with AgNext to drive the convergence of AI and Blockchain/DLT, while jointly bringing to market Hedera-powered AgriTech solutions that will enhance AgNext’s competitive edge in the web3 era,” said Stefan Deiss, co-founder & chief executive officer of The Hashgraph Group.

AgNext will also tap into Hedera’s blockchain technology and smart contracts for immutability, and efficiency. 

THG and AgNext’s goals also align around an initiative for Hedera-powered embedded devices, with these set to be available to customers globally via a new web3 venture. The partners will establish this venture in Switzerland.

AgNext raised $21 million in a Series A funding in 2021, with Alpha Wave Incubation leading the capital injection initiative.

The company has operations in India, the Middle East and the United States, with its first international office having opened in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates.

Meanwhile, Hedera is seeing notable traction in the tokenization of real-world assets. This includes via integrations such as with Chainlink and Alchemy Pay– the latter for onboarding via fiat-crypto on and off ramping.