REG - Agronomics Limited - Agronomics Leads Onego Bio's Seed Funding Round

AgronomicsAnnouncement

22/02/2022 07:01

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RNS Number : 3343C  Agronomics Limited  22 February 2022

22 February 2022

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

("Agronomics" or the "Company")

 

Agronomics Leads Onego Bio Ltd's Seed Funding Round

Agronomics, the leading listed company focused on the field of cellular
agriculture, is pleased to announce a €6.9 million investment ("the
Subscription") in Onego Bio Ltd ("Onego Bio"), a company developing
sustainable and animal free egg protein, as part of a €10 million Seed
fundraising round. Agronomics will hold an equity stake on a fully diluted
basis of 19.94%, and will have the right to a board seat. The Onego Bio
position will represent an estimated portfolio weighting based on the
Company's last reported Net Asset Value of 4.21%. The investment will be
funded using cash from the Company's own resources.

 

Onego Bio is a spin-out from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd
("VTT"), one of Europe's leading research institutions. The company harnesses
precision fermentation to develop egg proteins without the need for
traditional agriculture, with the aim of providing people with sustainable,
delicious and animal free egg protein. It was founded in Helsinki in 2021 by
CEO Maija Itkonen, CTO Chris Landowski, and COO Jussi Joensuu, after many
years of developing and researching their precision fermentation technology
whilst at VTT. Demand for alternative egg white protein continues to grow, due
to the environmental and welfare concerns associated with animal husbandry,
and continued global pressure on suppliers to go cage-free.

Onego Bio was founded in 2021 and, as such, is yet to generate revenue, incur
significant costs or report its Net Assets.

 

The full announcement is set out below without any material changes:

 

 Finnish startup Onego Bio Ltd raises EUR 10M in seed funding to
commercialize a breakthrough technology to produce egg white without chickens

 

The cellular agriculture spin-off from VTT Technical Research Centre of
Finland uses a commercially-proven Trichoderma technology to solve
environmental problems associated with eggs, one of the world's most used
animal proteins.

HELSINKI, Finland (22 February, 2022) The Finnish biotech startup Onego Bio
Ltd has announced the successful closure of EUR 10 million seed round with
participation from venture capital investors Agronomics Limited and Maki VC.
Onego Bio's technology, developed and researched at VTT, enables production of
bioalbumen with cellular agriculture means.

Bioalbumen is an animal-free egg protein, produced with a specific precision
fermentation process that creates identical egg white protein without the need
for animals.

The company believes that the demand for animal-free egg white protein will be
growing globally, because intensive animal farming causes many environmental
hazards, such as excessive use of land, greenhouse gas emissions, water
scarcity, and the risk of global pandemics.

"We want to thank VTT and our investors for supporting a technology that is
part of a bigger wave of changing people's perspective on alternative ways of
producing food. The time is right to spin out this technology and start
manufacturing our product, as consumers are more open to try products that are
not animal-derived," says Maija Itkonen, CEO of Onego Bio Ltd.

Global egg production has almost doubled its volumes during the past 20 years
and is forecasted to reach 138 million tonnes by 2030. At VTT, the team has
developed a safe, sustainable and cost-effective cellular agriculture method
for producing ovalbumin, the most abundant egg white protein. This biotech
process, based on harnessing the microflora Trichoderma reesei for protein
production, with the help of water, sugar and certain minerals, can provide
significant environmental improvements to the egg white production. The team
believes the chosen technology is superior because of its efficiency and
productivity.

Cellular agriculture uses microorganisms and bioreactors instead of
traditional animal farming. The method can be compared to beer production, in
which microorganism is fed sugar to produce alcohol.

"VTT's laboratories and technical teams have cutting-edge know-how to develop
truly new innovations. We will continue working together with them on the
scientific aspects, and together with our investors we simultaneously focus on
commercializing the technology," Itkonen continues.

Onego Bio Ltd will focus on building its pilot production in Finland during
the coming years and acquiring the necessary commercial approvals for its
first product, animal-free bioalbumen powder. The product will be first
marketed in the United States, where the regulatory landscape allows for
faster market entry.

Onego Bio Ltd is planning to market the product as a food ingredient for the
bakery and confectionary industry, as well as a protein supplement for fitness
products, and later enter the consumer market with its own branded products
for baking and cooking.

"We have a big mission: We want to rethink eggs and give people access to a
delicious healthy animal-free alternative. Egg white is a smart starting point
for the next level proteins. Because of its unique functional properties like
gelling, foaming, binding and emulsifying, the egg white is extremely
difficult to replace with alternative ingredients. In many applications, egg
is the last frontier before entirely animal-free end products can be
manufactured", says Itkonen.

"We are highly impressed with the Onego team's capabilities, background, and
their vision for the company.  With their technology, they have the potential
to produce bioalbumen at an industrial scale and at a price point that is
competitive with conventional egg production which has major implications for
the environment and animal welfare. Egg white production has a huge total
addressable market and there is a necessity to utilise precision fermentation
tools to meet the demand in a sustainable manner. We look forward to seeing
what they can accomplish", says Jim Mellon, Executive Director of Agronomics.

It is forecasted that food production based on cellular agriculture will lead
to a disruptive change in the entire food system. The technology would not
just have a positive impact on environmental issues but also reduce exposure
to antibiotics, and contribute to global health by preventing infectious
diseases, such as bird flu, from transferring to humans.

"VTT has world-class knowhow in the field of cellular agriculture and
microbial based protein production," says Tua Huomo, Executive Vice President,
VTT.  "In Finland there are great companies working on other areas of
cellular agriculture, and now it's time to set the bar high and have a
position also for proteins that are traditionally sourced from animals. This
action will be hopefully remembered as one of the great milestones towards the
more sustainable and healthy food system," Huomo concludes.

The project has been part of VTT LaunchPad, a science-based spin-off
incubator, where VTT researchers and technology are brought together with the
best business minds and investors out there to renew industries. VTT LaunchPad
supports incubator teams to develop VTT owned IPR into fundable spin-off
companies.

 

About Onego Bio Ltd

Onego Bio Ltd is a Finnish biotech company developing animal-free proteins
such as egg white. The company, founded in 2022, is a VTT spin-off that
salutes the remarkable work done by VTT for the next level cell ag products
and applications. The Onego Bio Ltd shareholders include venture capital
investors Agronomics and Maki. The new company founded by a group of
experienced entrepreneurs and scientists has acquired a technology license
from VTT as an investment by VTT Holding. The seasoned Onego Bio Ltd founders
include Maija Itkonen, CEO, who has a notable background as the plant based,
alternative protein movement force in Finland, through her previous company
Gold&Green Foods Ltd, and Christopher Landowski, CTO, a cellular
agriculture innovator who is behind the main IP and initial model for
producing the ovalbumin outside of chickens. The team is completed with Jussi
Joensuu, COO who is not only a renowned scientist and molecular biologist, but
also an experienced entrepreneur and farmer.

About VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd
(https://www.vttresearch.com/en)

VTT is a visionary research, development and innovation partner. We drive
sustainable growth and tackle the biggest global challenges of our time, and
turn them into growth opportunities. We go beyond the obvious to help the
society and companies to grow through technological innovations. We have 80
years of experience of top-level research and science-based results. VTT is at
the sweet spot where innovation and business come together. The European
Association of Research & Technology Organisations EARTO announced VTT's
technology as a winner of the EARTO Innovation Awards 2020 competition, in the
Impact Expected category on 28th October in Brussels.

 

About Maki.vc

Maki.vc is a seed-stage venture capital firm based in Helsinki, Finland that
champions the entrepreneurs who rewrite the future. The fund invests in deep
tech and brand-driven companies across consumer and enterprise spaces. Maki.vc
team and global network shares in the vision of entrepreneurs as champions and
challengers, drawing on the experience of scaling some of the strongest
technology companies. www.maki.vc. (https://www.maki.vc.)

 

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 20 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://clicktime.symantec.com/368cVqxx3R6vTFuHpf6MSE66Gi?u=https%3A%2F%2Fagronomics.im%2F)
.

 

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 $1.8 trillion investment will be required in
order to produce just 10% of the world's protein using this technology, means
that we are on the cusp of a multi-decade flow of capital to build out
manufacturing facilities. Funding in the field of cellular agriculture is
accelerating, however still less than US$ 2 billion has been invested
worldwide since the industry's inception in 2016.

 

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.

 

For further information please contact:

 Agronomics                                       Beaumont              Cenkos                Peterhouse Capital

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

 Denham Eke                                       James Biddle          Michael Johnson       Charles Goodfellow    Joe McGregor
 +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) 7738 724 630

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

 

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