New Zealand farming has a succession problem. Land prices have outpaced farm profitability to the point where the next generation can’t afford to buy in, and farmers nearing retirement have few options beyond selling to overseas capital or corporate agribusiness. Meanwhile, investors who want exposure to NZ agriculture have no accessible vehicle. Ground Up was conceived as the bridge between those two groups.
The platform concept: farmers list equity stakes in their operations, investors purchase tokenised shares representing real ownership fractions. Smart contracts handle distribution of returns (a share of annual profits, or proceeds from an eventual sale) without requiring a traditional share registry or financial intermediary. The blockchain component isn’t a gimmick; it genuinely solves the administrative complexity of fractional farm ownership at scale.
The research behind this project is substantive. NZ farm valuations, succession data from rural banks, comparable international models (particularly in the US and Australia), regulatory considerations under the Financial Markets Conduct Act, and the technical requirements for a compliant fractional ownership platform. The investor deck covers the opportunity, the model, the regulatory path, and the team profile needed to execute.
Ground Up (formerly crop-circle, then Bazar) is a showcase of market research and strategic thinking in the ag-tech space. It exists in the portfolio because the problem is real, the research is solid, and the concept has legs, even if executing it requires a co-founder with deep agricultural finance expertise.