REG - Agronomics Limited - Solar Foods Completes EURO 8m Series B Financing

AgronomicsAnnouncement

16/11/2023 14:15

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RNS Number : 7325T  Agronomics Limited  16 November 2023

16 November 2023

Agronomics Limited

("Agronomics" or the "Company")

Solar Foods Completes €8 million Series B Financing

 

Agronomics (LSE:ANIC), a leading listed company focused on the field of
cellular agriculture, is pleased to announce that portfolio company Solar
Foods Oy ("Solar Foods") has raised €8 million in a Series B financing round
carried out through the Finnish-based investment organizer Springvest Oyj
("Springvest"). In addition, existing investors participated in the Series B
financing alongside Springvest via a private placement anticipated to close
within 2 weeks. The private placement includes existing investors Happiness
Capital, Lifeline Ventures, VTT Ventures and Fazer. The Series B funds will be
used for continued building and ramping up production of their single cell
protein Solein(TM).

 

Since Agronomics' first investment in Solar Foods, significant technical,
regulatory, and operational progress has been made. This includes a
substantial increase in the productivity of SolarFoods' organism by over 10x,
achieving regulatory approval of Solein(TM) in Singapore and submission of a
dossier to the European Food Safety Authority for approval in the European
Union. In December 2022, Solar Foods received €34 million in grant funding
to support the construction of its first commercial scale facility, Factory
01, which management understands is currently scheduled to be operational in
the first half of 2024.

 

Agronomics has invested, in aggregate, €6 million in Solar Foods, being a
€3 million investment in Solar Foods Series A round in September 2020 and
€3 million in the form of a pre-Series B Convertible Promissory Note ("CPN")
in October 2021. Subject to audit, the Company's 2020 Series A investment will
be carried at a book value of £8.3 million including an uplift of £5.7
million. The Company expects to convert the CPN following the closing of the
private placement, at which point a further announcement will be made.

 

A link to the Solar Foods announcement is as follows:
https://solarfoods.com/solar-foods-share-issue-oversubscribed/
(https://solarfoods.com/solar-foods-share-issue-oversubscribed/)

 

About Solar Foods (https://solarfoods.com/)

Solar Foods produces protein using carbon dioxide and electricity. Solein(TM)
production, irrespective of weather and climate conditions, liberates global
protein production from the constraints of traditional agriculture. Solar
Foods, founded in 2017 in Espoo, Finland by Dr Pasi Vainikka, Dr Juha-Pekka
Pitkänen, Sami Holmström, Jari Tuovinen, Professor Jero Ahola, and Janne
Mäkelä as a spinoff from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and LUT
University. www.solarfoods.com (http://www.solarfoods.com/) .

 

About Solein(TM)

Solein(TM) is a microbial protein-rich powder that contains all the essential
amino acids. It is produced using a bioprocess where microbes are fed with
gases, including carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen, together with small
amounts of nutrients. The bioprocess resembles winemaking, with carbon dioxide
and hydrogen replacing sugar as the source of carbon and energy.

This type of production method has the potential to transform the
sustainability, availability, and transparency of what we eat and where food
can be produced. It is not reliant on agriculture, weather, or climate: it can
be produced in harsh conditions such as deserts, Arctic areas, even space.
Learn more about Solein(TM) at www.solein.com (http://www.solein.com/) .

About Agronomics

Agronomics (https://agronomics.im/) is the leading listed venture capital firm
with a focus on cellular agriculture. The Company has established a portfolio
of over 20 holdings 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.

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, 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 $1.8 trillion investment is needed to produce just 10% of
the world's protein using this technology, means that we are on the cusp of a
multi-decade flow of capital to build out manufacturing facilities. Funding in
the field of cellular agriculture is accelerating, however, it is still less
than US$ 5 billion - the amount invested worldwide since the industry's
inception in 2016.

For further information please contact:

 Agronomics           Beaumont              Canaccord Genuity Limited       Cavendish Securities Plc  Peterhouse Capital    SEC Newgate

 Limited              Cornish Limited                                                                 Limited
 The Company          Nomad                 Joint Broker                    Joint Broker              Joint Broker          Public Relations
 Richard Reed         Roland Cornish        Andrew Potts                    Giles Balleny             Lucy Williams         Bob Huxford

 Denham Eke           James Biddle          Harry Rees                      Michael Johnson           Charles Goodfellow    George Esmond

                                            Alex Aylen (Head of Equities)                                                   Anthony Hughes

                                                                                                                            Alice Cho
 +44 (0) 1624 639396  +44 (0) 207 628 3396  +44 (0) 207 523 8000            +44 (0) 207 397 8900      +44 (0) 207 469 0936  agronomics@secnewgate.co.uk

 info@agronomics.im

 

 

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