Orygen: transforming rural land into strategic assets
Founded in November 2022 by Costanza Pinto Bonomo (COO) and Victoria Hermida Esquitino (CEO), Orygen emerged from Demium’s incubator. Its purpose is to connect owners of unprofitable rural land with companies seeking land for project development. Landowners gain income from properties that were previously burdens thanks to the development of renewable energy projects, agriculture, carbon credit reforestation, or timber production. Companies, on the other hand, gain agile and transparent access to a traditionally opaque market with limited data. In just over two years, Orygen has already converted more than 75,000 hectares into productive and sustainable assets. Costanza Pinto shares the company’s story and the keys to the success of this highly innovative startup.
Your slogan is “We transform land, we drive projects.” How is this dual mission put into practice?
At Orygen, our mission is to give new life to rural land while facilitating the development of sustainable and profitable projects. This mission is carried out through two main pillars.
On one hand, we focus on land transformation by connecting landowners with concrete opportunities to make their properties profitable. Through our technology, we analyze the potential of each piece of land and connect it to companies in markets such as renewable energy, agriculture, carbon credit reforestation, or timber production, among others. In doing so, we help unused land generate economic, social, and environmental value.
On the other hand, we work with companies seeking land for their initiatives, offering them more agile and transparent access to the rural land market. In a traditionally opaque sector, Orygen provides data and analysis that facilitate decision-making and help more projects reach completion. Additionally, we offer a tailor-made service, mobilizing a network of brokers and collaborators across Spain to find land that matches each company’s needs precisely. Before presenting any opportunity to our clients, we conduct a detailed analysis, which not only speeds up the search process but also optimizes brokerage by ensuring that each plot of land has the potential for the required project development.
In this way, our work not only optimizes land management but also contributes to the revitalization of rural areas and the growth of key industries for the ecological transition.
The platform features a land analysis system. How does this tool work and who is it intended for?
Our platform includes an advanced land analysis system that uses artificial intelligence, computer vision, and geospatial analysis to accurately assess the potential of each plot.
Here’s how the system works: the tool processes our database, including technical and legal aspects such as climate conditions, protected areas, access, environmental features, slope, water availability, power lines, and many more. Thanks to AI algorithms and computer vision, we identify development opportunities and potential risks, determining the most profitable and sustainable uses for each piece of land. This gives our clients and landowners clear, detailed information on the real potential of each site.
This analysis service is aimed at a wide range of clients, such as landowners looking for viable options to understand and monetize their land without selling it. It’s also useful for companies and investors needing reliable data to make strategic decisions about acquiring or leasing land. Brokers and industry agents also benefit, as they require precise and structured information to speed up land sales and purchases. Even public entities use the service to optimize territorial planning and promote more sustainable development.
Our system not only reduces uncertainty in the land market, but also improves decision-making, helping channel resources toward projects that generate economic, social, and environmental impact.
“We help landowners find new opportunities without the complexity of managing them on their own”.
Many companies are looking to offset their carbon emissions. How do you work with these types of clients?
Companies aiming to offset their carbon emissions are just one of the many industries we work with. At Orygen, we collaborate with a wide variety of sectors, including renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, the forestry market, glamping projects, and carbon and biodiversity credit companies.
Our approach is always the same: unlock the potential of rural land. We have a portfolio of over 75,000 hectares across Spain and, if no land matches a client’s needs, we activate our “Ad-hoc Requests” tool. This system allows companies to precisely define the characteristics of the land they’re seeking (location, size, regulations, technical features, etc.). With this information, we mobilize our network of brokers and experts to identify land that fits those requirements.
Before presenting any opportunity, we thoroughly analyze each plot to ensure it matches the client’s needs, thus optimizing the negotiation process and accelerating the connection between supply and demand. With this model, we not only enable the development of sustainable and profitable projects, but also help landowners find new opportunities without the complexity of managing them on their own.
You’ve already transformed more than 75,000 hectares of rural land. What are the biggest challenges you face in carrying out these transformations?
Despite our success, transforming rural land into productive and sustainable assets comes with key challenges. One is the complexity of accessing data, as Spain’s land market lacks centralized and accessible information. At Orygen, we are compiling and structuring previously unavailable data to reduce uncertainty and facilitate decision-making. Another challenge is legal and regulatory barriers, as land-use laws are complex and can determine a project’s viability. A plot may have enormous potential, but if it’s under environmental protection laws, it’s automatically ruled out for many initiatives. We also face issues with the opacity and disorganization of the market, with many owners lacking proper land registration or key documents, such as those proving water access. This not only slows down transactions but also reflects a deep-rooted mindset: many avoid regularizing their land because they associate it with extra costs without seeing the real benefit.
Ultimately, our biggest challenge is changing the landowners’ mindset — helping them see their land not as a burden but as an opportunity to generate value, an asset. Orygen brings transparency, technology, and concrete solutions so they can profit from their land sustainably, without lack of information or time being an obstacle.
What kind of solutions does Orygen offer to owners of large plots that are already in use?
At Orygen, we identify opportunities that landowners may not have considered. Most are specialized in a single activity, like olive growing, wine production, or renewable energy. However, the true potential of their land lies in diversification and creating multiple income streams.
For instance, if a plot already has olive trees, why not certify the CO₂ absorbed by those trees to generate extra income? At the same time, a water credit project could be integrated, allowing a complete irrigation system upgrade at no cost to the owner, resulting in significant savings. Moreover, in that unused two-hectare area at the back of the property, a glamping project could be set up, creating a new revenue stream without impacting the main activity. The possibilities are immense, and the only reason many of them don’t materialize is because owners lack the time or resources to identify them. At Orygen, we take care of this for them, ensuring that every square meter of their land works in their favor as efficiently and profitably as possible.
“Our system optimizes decision-making, helping to channel resources into projects that generate economic, social, and environmental impact”.
Among all the projects you’ve carried out, is there one you’re especially proud of?
If we had to pick one, it would probably be the first, as it marked the beginning of our mission. It happened in Pego, Alicante, with a small 1.5-hectare plot. The owner contacted us without a clear plan, just with the desire to do something useful with land that had been unused for years. We analyzed its potential and gave it a new purpose: a reforestation with native and profitable species adapted to the local ecosystem. We connected him with a company that was looking for exactly that type of land for a project. Today, that plot is no longer forgotten space — it’s an example of how, with the right strategy, any property can regain its value and contribute to the environment. Regardless of the project’s size, for us it symbolized something much bigger: the first plot with a new purpose thanks to Orygen.
What are the main challenges you foresee in the near future?
Our goal is to continue scaling Orygen’s impact, not just in Spain but around the world, and to do that, we face several key challenges, such as expanding our land network and improving data accessibility. There are still millions of underutilized hectares in Spain, and our challenge is to reach more landowners, offering them even more solutions to make their land profitable.
At the same time, we continue working on collecting and analyzing data to make the rural land market more transparent and efficient, while democratizing access to information for landowners. Another challenge is consolidating our “Requests” model. We want to refine and scale this tool so that more companies can find exactly the land they need in an agile and structured way. This means strengthening our broker network and streamlining the land search and validation process even more. We’re also promoting new monetization opportunities for landowners. From carbon and biodiversity credits to rural tourism or regenerative agriculture projects, there are many ways to generate income from land. We aim to keep identifying and developing new opportunities that allow landowners to diversify their income sources and maximize land value.
Finally, we want to break mental barriers in the sector, since one of the biggest challenges remains shifting landowners’ perception of their property. Many still view their land as a burden, when in fact, it can become a strategic asset. We want to keep driving this change, proving through action that there are real and profitable solutions for every piece of land.
As we grow, our mission remains the same: transform land and connect opportunities, creating a positive impact for landowners, companies, and the environment.
