Agronomics EUR3 million investment in Solar Foods
26th October 2021
("Agronomics" or the "Company")
Agronomics €3 million Participation in Solar Foods Bridge Round
Agronomics, the leading listed company focused on the field of cellular agriculture, is pleased to announce it has participated for €3 million (the "Subscription") in the €6 million Bridge Round for investee company Solar Foods Oy ("Solar Foods") in the form of a Convertible Loan Note ("CLN"). This follows the announcement that the State-owned Finnish Climate Fund has invested €10 million to aid the build out of Solar Food's demonstration facility. Also joining this round are existing investors CPT Capital and Happiness Capital Limited and new investor, LOSA Group.
The CLN is expected to convert to give Agronomics an approximate equity ownership of 5.80 per cent, inclusive of its prior investment announced in September 2020 . In the past year, Solar Foods has made strong R&D progress and is now focused on building its new demonstration facility that is set to be operational early 2023. Solar Foods' novel technology has recently been recognised by NASA as part of their Deep Space Food Challenge - looking for new solutions to feed astronauts.
Jim Mellon, Non-executive Director of Agronomics commented:-
"Recently, our team visited Solar Foods in Finland and were very impressed by the operation's scientific rigour, and the potential of Solein as a sustainable protein source to meet future protein demand. We look forward to the build out of the demonstration facility"
Pasi Vainikka, CEO and co-founder of Solar Foods, added:-
"Solein can be used in a wide variety of foods, supplementing the nutritional profile of plant-based products and enabling them to replace animal-based foods without compromising nutritional value."
The full announcement is set out below with no material changes or adjustments:
"The new Solar Foods production facility, called Factory 01, is set to begin construction in Q4 2021 in Vantaa, Finland. The company estimates that the commercial Solein® production will begin in the first half of 2023 and Factory 01 will serve as Solar Foods' platform for scaling up production.
Factory 01 will offer the food industry and the public a completely new perspective into what the future of food will be. At the facility's Experience Hub, visitors can learn how Solein is made and how it can be used in a broad variety of foods.
Solar Foods' innovative protein powder is a first-of-its-kind food ingredient. Solein can be used in a wide variety of foods, supplementing the nutritional profile of plant-based products. So far, Solar Foods has developed more than 20 different types of food products that utilise Solein in varying proportions.
By removing agriculture from the equation, Solein is set to revolutionise food production. With land use and agriculture making up 24% of global emissions, the global carbon footprint could be significantly reduced with the large-scale adoption of Solein.
Solein's qualities and its use in different foods have been tested in a pilot factory for nearly two years. The new Factory 01 will enable a new scale of operations, allowing Solar Foods to commercialise Solein and chart its way towards full-scale industrial production.
'Tectonic shifts are happening at our dinner tables'
Solar Foods, founded in 2017 as a spin-off of VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and LUT University, has achieved rapid growth. The company's CEO and co-founder Pasi Vainikka sees Solar Foods as being on the crest of a wave of technologies that will change our perception of food. Even the everyday act of eating will be a force for a more sustainable planet.
'Today we're at a similar crossroads with the food system as we were in the mid-1980s with information and communication technology', Vainikka explains. 'VC funds and new companies are investing billions of dollars to reinvent an entire sector in the global economy: the food industry. Tectonic shifts are happening at our dinner tables. The future of food is here and happening as we speak.'
'We need more sustainable ways to feed the world. What we eat has never been static: humanity has seen food revolutions from the days of the first hunter-gatherers all the way to the unsustainable industrial system of today. The fundamentals of food production have, however, always stayed the same. We're now in the middle of the fourth agricultural revolution that is finally changing those fundamentals, and Solein is a part of it. Factory 01 will lead the way in taking the world's most sustainable protein global', he emphasises.
Solar Foods has made its vision a reality quickly by developing and testing its groundbreaking protein. Now the company is bringing the world's most sustainable protein to our plates with its first factory and taking Solein to market. The next food revolution is here.
Solar Foods produces protein using air-captured carbon dioxide and electricity. Solein production, independent of weather and climate conditions, liberates global protein production from the limits of traditional agriculture. Solein can be produced in harsh environments, such as desert and Arctic areas or even outer space, where traditional food production is not possible. Solar Foods was founded in Espoo, Finland, in 2017 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.fi .
Agronomics is a leading listed alternative proteins company with a focus on cellular agriculture. The Company has established a portfolio of 15 companies from the Pre-Seed to Series B 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/ .
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 $1.8 trillion investment will be required in order to produce just 10% of the world's protein using this technology, means that we are on the cusp of a multi-decade flow of capital to build out manufacturing facilities. Funding in the field of cellular agriculture is accelerating, however still less than US$ 1 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 Limited |
Beaumont Cornish Limited |
Cenkos Securities Plc |
Peterhouse Capital Limited |
TB Cardew |
|
The Company |
Nomad |
Joint Broker |
Joint Broker |
Public Relations |
|
Richard Reed Denham Eke |
Roland Cornish James Biddle |
Giles Balleny Michael Johnson |
Lucy Williams Charles Goodfellow |
Ed Orlebar Joe McGregor |
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+44 (0) 1624 639396 info@agronomics.im |
+44 (0) 207 628 3396 |
+44 (0) 207 397 8900 |
+44 (0) 207 469 0936 |
+44 (0) 20 7930 0777 +44 (0) 7738 724 630 agronomics@tbcardew.com |
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