REG - Agronomics Limited - Agronomics Leads Clean Food Group’s Seed Financing

AgronomicsAnnouncement

01/08/2022 07:00

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RNS Number : 2994U  Agronomics Limited  01 August 2022

1(st) August 2022

Agronomics Limited

("Agronomics" or the "Company")

Agronomics Leads Clean Food Group's Seed Financing of £1.65 million

Agronomics, the leading listed company focused on the field of cellular
agriculture, is pleased to announce it has led Clean Food Group Limited's
("Clean Food Group") seed financing with a £577,500 investment, subscribing
for 5,775,000 Ordinary Shares at 10 pence per share (the "Subscription").
Clean Food Group is a UK-based cellular agriculture company focused on the
commercialisation of palm oil by fermentation. The Subscription will be made
using cash from the Company's own resources. Also joining the round is AIM
traded SEED Innovations Limited (of which Jim Mellon, executive director of
Agronomics, has a 6.95% holding).

Clean Food Group was co-founded by CEO Alex Neves and Co-Chairman Ed McDermott
in 2021, with the goal of becoming a leading independent UK cultivated food
ingredients business. Ed McDermott founded EMMAC Life Sciences Limited, a
European medicinal cannabis business which was scaled and sold to Curaleaf
Holdings Limited (CuraLeaf
(https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.google.com/url?q%3Dhttps://curaleafinternational.com/%26amp;sa%3DD%26amp;source%3Deditors%26amp;ust%3D1657614230864712%26amp;usg%3DAOvVaw0w9x1hgLuqg6Dw9aI1NiKo&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1657614230896530&usg=AOvVaw1oZ8nm4iXbIq1ZakknDUka)
) for US$ 345 million in April 2021. Alex Neves was Head of EMMAC's Consumer
Division and played a key role in the company's success.

In March 2022, Agronomics subscribed for 32,300,000 Ordinary Shares at 1p per
share in Clean Food Group's founder's round for a total consideration of
£0.323 million which will, subject to audit and based on the price per share
of the latest Subscription, be carried at £3.23 million, representing a
multiple on invested capital of 10.  Following the close of the seed
financing, the Company will hold a total of 38,075,000 ordinary shares with an
equity stake of 35.03% and an aggregate value of £3,807,500. Agronomics will
have the right to a board seat of Clean Food Group and Jim Mellon, an
Agronomics' director, will be appointed as non-executive Co-Chairman.

Clean Food Group recently acquired the intellectual property from the
University of Bath for a technology platform that produces a bio-equivalent
palm oil alternative using microbial fermentation and has secured a two-year
collaboration with the University to scale the technology and bring its palm
oil alternative to market. Additionally, the proprietary technology platform
also produces natural 2-phenylethanol as a by-product, which is used worldwide
as a rose fragrance and flavour and will also be commercialised.

The technology has been developed over the last eight years by Professor Chris
Chuck and his team at the University of Bath. Professor Chris Chuck joined
Clean Food Group as a technical advisor and leads a team of scientists at a
dedicated Clean Food Group laboratory and Pilot Plant at the University of
Bath.

Clean Food Group is currently identifying partners to work with and intends to
submit a novel foods dossier for market approval of its palm oil alternative
product to the European Food Standards Agency and UK Food Standards Agency in
2022.

The global palm oil market reached a value of US$ 50.6 billion in 2021 and is
expected to reach US$ 65.5 billion by 2027. However, palm oil has been, and
continues to be, a major driver of deforestation of some of the world's most
biodiverse forests, destroying the habitat of already endangered species like
the orangutan, pygmy elephant and Sumatran rhino. This forest loss coupled
with conversion of carbon rich peat soils are generating millions of tonnes of
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contributing to climate change. There
also remains the issues of exploitation of workers and child labour.

 

Jim Mellon, executive director of Agronomics commented:-

"We are thrilled to be supporting Clean Food Group and broadening our
portfolio into sustainable bio-equivalent palm oil. This is an important and
exciting development, and this latest investment will help Clean Food Group to
achieve R&D milestones and prepare regulatory dossiers for approval. The
technology has huge scale potential and we look forward to being part of the
company's next stage of growth."

Alex Neves, co-founder and CEO of Clean Food Group added:-

"We are pleased to have seen such significant demand for our seed financing
round and are particularly excited to be working with Agronomics, widely
recognised as a pioneer of the cellular agriculture investment community, as
our cornerstone investor. We are committed to establishing ourselves as a
leading UK cultivated food ingredients business, starting with the
commercialisation of our bio-equivalent palm oil alternative, a product that
has already received significant market interest. With this funding round now
successfully completed, we are not only well capitalised to complete the next
stage of our corporate development, but are also well placed to take the next
step on the path to bringing our palm oil alternative, an ingredient with the
potential to solve substantial environmental, food security, health and
working environment challenges within the incumbent palm oil supply chain, to
market."

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of
the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014, as it forms part of UK Domestic
Law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Upon the
publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to
be in the public domain.

About Clean Food Group (https://cleanfood.group/)

The Clean Food Group is a UK based food-tech business focused on bringing
sustainable, cultivated foods to market, initially, in the UK and Europe.

Clean Food Group operates within the fast-developing cultivated food industry,
a market with significant opportunities driven by global environmental, health
and animal welfare concerns about existing and future consumption levels of
animal protein and other foods such as palm oil.

Clean Food Group sets itself apart through its strong technical, consumer and
retail expertise, strong financial backing, and its ability to navigate the
complex regulatory environment for new food products.

Clean Food Group is founded by a team with key experience in growing bio-tech,
food industry and retail businesses supported by established venture capital
and family office investors with a track record supporting highly successful
growth companies in highly regulated industries.

 

About Agronomics (https://agronomics.im/)

Agronomics is a leading listed alternative proteins company with a focus on
cellular agriculture and cultivated meat. The Company has established a
portfolio of 23 companies at the pre-seed to Series C stage in this rapidly
advancing sector. It seeks to secure minority stakes in companies owning
technologies with defensible intellectual property that offer new ways of
producing food and materials with a focus on products historically derived
from animals. These technologies are driving a major disruption in
agriculture, offering solutions to improve sustainability, as well as
addressing human health, animal welfare and environmental damage. This
disruption will decouple supply chains from the environment and animals, as
well as being fundamental to feeding the world's expanding population. A full
list of Agronomics' portfolio companies is available at https://agronomics.im/
(https://agronomics.im/) .

 

About Cellular Agriculture

Cellular Agriculture is the production of agriculture products directly from
cells, as opposed to raising an animal for slaughter, or growing crops. This
encompasses cell culture to produce cultivated meat and materials, and
fermentation processes that harness a combination of molecular biology,
synthetic biology, tissue engineering and biotechnology to massively simplify
production methods in a sustainable manner.

Over the coming decades, the source of the world's food supply traditionally
derived from conventional agriculture is going to change dramatically. We have
already witnessed the first wave of this shift with the consumer adoption of
plant-based alternative proteins but today, we are on the cusp of an even
bigger wave of change. This is being facilitated by advances in cellular
agriculture. This change is necessary, given scientists claims that if we
maintain existing animal protein consumption patterns, then we will not meet
the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting warming to 1.5℃'

AT Kearney, a global consultancy firm, projects that cultivated meat's market
share will reach 35% by 2040. This combined with the Good Food Institute's
estimate that a US $1.8 trillion investment will be required in order to
produce just 10% of the world's protein using this technology, means that we
are on the cusp of a multi-decade flow of capital to build out manufacturing
facilities. Funding in the field of cellular agriculture is accelerating,
however still less than US$ 4 billion has been invested worldwide since the
industry's inception in 2016.

 

For further information please contact:

 Agronomics                                       Beaumont              Canaccord                       Cenkos                Peterhouse Capital

 Limited                                          Cornish Limited       Genuity Limited                 Securities Plc        Limited               TB Cardew
 The Company                                      Nomad                     Joint Broker                Joint Broker          Joint Broker          Public Relations
 Richard Reed                                     Roland Cornish        Andrew Potts                    Giles Balleny         Lucy Williams

 Denham Eke                                       James Biddle          Harry Rees                      Max Gould             Charles Goodfellow    Ed Orlebar

                                                                        Alex Aylen (Head of Equities)   Michael Johnson                             Alistair Walker
 +44 (0) 1624 639396                              +44 (0) 207 628 3396                                  +44 (0) 207 397 8900  +44 (0) 207 469 0936  +44 (0) 20 7930 0777

 info@agronomics.im (mailto:info@agronomics.im)                              +44 (0) 207 523 8000                                                   +44 (0) 7738 724 630

                                                                                                                                                    agronomics@tbcardew.com (mailto:agronomics@tbcardew.com)

 

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