With an active database of thousands of people looking to invest in New Zealand farms, orchards, forestry and agritech, Syndex is helping agribusinesses access the capital they need to grow.

Seven years after AGMARDT backed its proof-of-concept, Syndex has grown into a platform hosting $5 billion funds under management, connecting thousands of investors to New Zealand primary sector opportunities.

The platform allows business owners to invite investors to buy into their venture – maybe to expand an orchard, or transition some land from pastoral farming to horticulture – providing access to capital without selling assets or taking on restrictive debt. Shareholders can then trade those shares on a secondary market, similar to how stocks are traded.

Syndex now administers $5 billion in assets across 300+ investment schemes, with New Zealand primary sector opportunities representing around 50% of the portfolio. New Zealand businesses that have grown by accessing capital through Syndex include kiwifruit and avocado orchards, packhouses, vineyards, cherries, apples, forestry, and pastoral farms.

With more than 18,000 account holders and 3500 investors subscribing to a weekly newsletter, Syndex has grown dramatically from the 659 subscribers reported to AGMARDT in 2018, when its grant-funded project completed.

At that time, appetite for new sources of capital for the primary sector was high, following the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 and subsequent changes to banking regulations. AGMARDT made a $50,000 grant to Syndex to create a proof-of-concept digital platform for an ‘expressions of interest/opportunities’ market, to provide access to capital for privately owned pastoral farming, horticulture, viticulture, forestry, agritech and other agribusinesses.

Syndex CEO Ross Verry was Syndex’s third employee at the time. “Investing in agriculture as an asset class was attractive to a lot of people. We were confident in our idea, but we had to address some of the barriers to make primary sector businesses more accessible to investors.”

“We needed to understand what tech infrastructure would give a business owner or fund manager confidence, and make it easier for private investors to take meaningful fractional positions in agri assets and be able to exit when they need to.”

The project introduced new investors to primary sector opportunities, and introduced a syndicated model of ownership to the primary sector. The following year, seeing the platform’s proven potential, AGMARDT provided Syndex with a $240,000 short-term loan (repaid in 2021) – one of only three loans in AGMARDT’s history – to introduce buyer-initiated bidding to the platform, including periodic trading auctions.

This gave buyers new flexibility and liquidity but required a big technology shift, says Verry. “We had an existing market, a bit like TradeMe, where sellers could list units and wait for a buyer. This was upgraded, so that now a buyer can say they’re looking for a certain number of shares in a business. Our clients can also run a specific trading auction, which often suited their investor needs better.”

“We were a very small company then, so the loan was really meaningful for us.”

It hasn’t always been plain sailing, with Syndex facing its greatest challenges in the past three years of high interest rates and high inflation, says Verry. “With returns on conservative investments like term deposits often around 6%, potential investors were moving more money to the bank. Investor sentiment changed a lot, and with a higher cost of debt and reduced bank appetite to lend, business growth stalled quite starkly for a period.”

On the flipside, it was a boost to Syndex’s secondary markets. “Fund managers struggling to match bank returns could set up a Syndex trading event, so people who need money could list their investments for sale, while buyer acquired those assets at a slight discount,” says Verry.

Syndex clients have also adapted in recent years. For example, MyFarm merged a number of kiwifruit orchard investments into one fund, diversifying risk for investors and simplifying fund administration, with a quarterly trading auction for investors looking to buy in or exit.

The platform has also created pathways for other primary sector innovators – including Seedling Investments, another AGMARDT-backed initiative using Syndex to address farm succession challenges by connecting next-generation farmers with investors.

As interest rates began to ease in late 2025, Verry was optimistic about renewed investor appetite. A recently inked strategic partnership with a North American Family Office will help expand Syndex across the Tasman and grow US investment into the New Zealand and Australian primary sector.

Syndex has made agricultural assets genuinely accessible to investors, and expanded New Zealand primary sector businesses’ access to international capital. From concept to $5 billion in assets in just seven years, the 2018 project’s vision of improving agricultural sector investability has been impressively achieved.

Grant: A18021, $50,000 for Syndex Limited Accessing Agri Capital, 2018

Loan: F19001, $240,000 short term loan, 2019–21