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 How one conversation at Asia-Pacific Agri-Food helped Zentide unlock a commercial license, and a clearer path to market.

There's a moment most founders know well. You're mid-pitch, and you watch someone's expression shift — from polite interest to genuine recognition. This is the solution. This is the moment they've been waiting for.

For Zachary Nice, founder and CEO of Zentide, that moment happened not in a boardroom but on the summit floor at Asia-Pacific Agri-Food.

Zach is building something most people haven't heard of yet, and that's exactly the point.

Zentide develops seaweed-based biostimulants: natural inputs that help farmers cut fertiliser dependency, restore soil health, and reduce emissions. It's the kind of technology that sounds niche until you do the maths on global input costs, soil degradation, and what climate volatility is doing to harvests across the Indo-Pacific.

Zach came to the Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit with a specific goal: find the people helping shape the future of food and agriculture, and show them what's possible.

He found them.

"After speaking, multiple stakeholders immediately approached me."

Zach's presentation on Zentide's seaweed-based biostimulants generated a sense of urgency. Farmers are being squeezed by rising input costs on one side and unpredictable growing conditions on the other. Decision-makers at the summit weren't looking for another theoretical roadmap. They wanted validated solutions, ready to move.

Zentide had one.

What followed were the kinds of conversations that don't just happen over email – the ones where a potential partner tells you exactly what they need, what they've tried, and why it hasn't worked. The hallways were as productive as the stage.

The win that followed wasn't small.

Shortly after the summit, Zentide received its commercial license from the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture to distribute its first seaweed-based biostimulant. A tangible, operational milestone that moves a start-up from promising to deployable.

Conversations with investors, commercial partners, and industry stakeholders are ongoing. The summit didn't just close one deal but rather opened a pipeline.

What Zach sees coming excites him more than what's already arrived.

"What excites me most is the shift toward solutions that align farmer economics with sustainability," he says. For too long, climate-smart agriculture has asked farmers to absorb cost and complexity in the name of sustainability. That trade-off is collapsing. Technologies like Zentide's can lower input costs, lift yields, rebuild soils, and cut emissions simultaneously.

When sustainability stops being a sacrifice and starts being a competitive advantage, adoption stops being a challenge.

One piece of advice, from someone who's done it

His advice to founders considering the summit is direct:

"Go with a clear objective. Know what success looks like before you land. Make time for the conversations that happen outside the agenda. And be ready to explain not just what your technology does, but why it matters commercially and operationally."

The room is full of people who can move your company forward. But only if you're ready to tell them why they should.

Your turn.

The Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit is where founders meet the funders, partners, and buyers building the future of agri-food. If you're working on solutions that can change how the world grows, feeds, and sustains itself, this is where those conversations start.

Want to be the next success story? Enquire about start-up opportunities now at www.agrifoodinnovation.com/start-ups.