Why investing in natural assets is finally getting easier: An interview with Ridge founder Sascha Breuss

As global financial markets increasingly turn their focus toward sustainability and long-term value, natural assets, such as managed forests and farmland, have emerged as a premier frontier for institutional capital. Yet, despite representing a massive $9–10 trillion market, these assets have long remained frustratingly out of reach for mainstream investors due to complex compliance hurdles, illiquidity, and fragmented discovery processes.

By transforming complex ecological projects into ISIN-listed securities, the platform allows traditional asset managers to invest in natural assets without leaving their established custody and compliance frameworks.

In this exclusive interview, Fatima Ayache speaks with Sascha Breuss, Spokesperson for Ridge, about the digital transformation of natural asset investing, the growing role of AI in streamlining due diligence, and why the Gulf is emerging as a global hub for long-term natural capital investment.

The Interview

Fatima Ayache: With today’s launch, you are opening up access to a massive $9–10 trillion market. What has been the biggest barrier preventing institutional capital from accessing natural assets at scale until now?

Sascha Breuss: There are several barriers, and they stack. It starts with discovery: where do you even find these assets? Once you’ve found a project looking for capital, how do you assess it? And once you’ve assessed it, how do you execute the transaction? It’s a piecemeal process every single time, and that drives costs up to the point where it becomes unsustainable, unless an institution has a dedicated team for this specific industry. Most don’t.

Fatima Ayache: You’ve noted that legacy options like illiquid timberland funds and unregulated marketplaces fail to meet institutional compliance and custody standards. How exactly does Ridge’s infrastructure clear that compliance bar for asset managers?

Sascha Breuss: Especially in Europe and the Middle East, large institutional investors face strict limits on how they can invest in alternative assets. Most natural-asset opportunities available today are either illiquid, difficult to diligence, or lack the level of transparency and regulatory structure these investors require.

Ridge takes the opposite approach. Instead of asking investors to move outside their existing compliance and custody frameworks, we structure natural-asset projects as ISIN-listed securities. This means they can sit in the same custody accounts, go through the same compliance checks, and be handled like other traditional financial instruments. It is more work for us, but it removes a major barrier for investors. They do not need to lower their standards or create new processes in order to participate.

Fatima Ayache: Ridge transforms complex assets like forests and farmland into ISIN-listed securities. For an investor, is the experience of buying into a Ridge-structured natural asset truly identical to purchasing a traditional equity or bond?

Sascha Breuss: The access experience is designed to feel familiar: an ISIN-listed security, purchased and held exactly like a traditional bond or equity. What’s different is what sits behind it. These are real natural assets, well managed, with tangible impact. Investors get everything they’d normally get with a traditional instrument, but they can also dig deeper and see beyond the balance sheet of the underlying asset.

Fatima Ayache: By utilizing AI-driven due diligence and digital structuring, you’ve cut issuance time down from months to weeks. How does your digital workflow accelerate this process while maintaining rigorous risk and environmental validation?

Sascha Breuss: Transactions in this industry take incredibly long to conclude, and costs are high. To overcome that we lean heavily on technology, and Blockchain + AI are part of it. We see AI as an amazing tool, but it has to be in the hands of people who are experts in their field, and those people will always be in control at Ridge. We use AI to gain enormous efficiency while making sure our rigour is increased by it, not decreased.

Fatima Ayache: Ridge is backed by Disrupt.com, an operator-led venture builder based in the MENA region. How has their hands-on operational support shaped your launch strategy, and what role do you see Gulf capital playing in the expansion of natural asset infrastructure?

Sascha Breuss: Disrupt.com is our venture building partner and investor. We’re very aligned on how to build businesses and having a partner that can augment Ridge with capabilities we’d otherwise have to build in-house slowly has given us a lot of speed.

On the Gulf’s role: we’re obviously a little biased, but we strongly believe the two categories that will matter most in the coming decades are technology and natural assets. Technology will fundamentally change every industry and business. Natural assets will be the counterweight. The Gulf has a history of thinking long term, which is exactly what this asset class rewards.