TIDMANIC
RNS Number : 6797Y
Agronomics Limited
08 September 2022
8(th) September 2022
Agronomics Limited
("Agronomics" or the "Company")
Portfolio Company Bond Pet Foods Completes Series A Financing to
Scale Nutritionally Complete Meat Proteins
Agronomics (AIM:ANIC), the leading listed company focused on the
field of cellular agriculture, is pleased to announce that
portfolio company Bond Pet Foods, Inc ("Bond Pet Foods"), engaged
in the production of meat proteins through precision fermentation
for pet food applications, has completed its Series A financing
round, raising US$ 17.5 million.
Agronomics invested in Bond Pet Foods in September 2019, with a
US$ 15 0k investment in the form of a convertible promissory note
("CPN"). The CPN has now converted into 531,692 Series A Preferred
Shares, representing an equity ownership of 1.85%. Subject to
audit, Agronomics will now carry this position at a book value of
US$ 933k, representing an unrealised gain on cost of US$ 783k. This
provides a multiple on invested capital (MOIC) of 6.22 and an
internal rate of return (IRR) of 84% on the initial investment.
The full announcement is set out below without any material
changes:
Bond Pet Foods Closes $17.5MM in Series A Funding to Scale
Nutritionally Complete Meat Proteins Produced Through Precision
Fermentation
Company breaks ground on new 15,000 sq. ft. facility
BOULDER, Colo., September 8, 2022 -- Bond Pet Foods , the
Boulder-based company creating meat proteins through fermentation
for pet food applications, announced today that it has completed
its Series A fundraise totaling $17.5 million.
The oversubscribed round includes investment from global food
and agriculture pioneers ADM Ventures (Archer Daniels Midland
Company) and Cavallo Ventures (Wilbur Ellis); institutional funds
Genoa Ventures and Lever VC; food/tech and sustainability investors
Thia Ventures, iSelect Fund, Stage 1 Fund, Lifely VC and Satori
Capital, as well as music icons Sia Isabelle Furler and Joan
Jett.
The funding will be used to expand Bond's meat protein portfolio
and scale up production at a new 15,000 square foot facility in
central Boulder. The Series A will also allow Bond to more than
triple the size of its team, strengthening its science, technical
and regulatory competency.
"We're excited to be a part of this next chapter of Bond Pet
Foods' growth," said Jorge Martinez, President, Pet Solutions for
ADM. "Pet nutrition, with industry sales at $100 billion and
growing at 4.5% a year, is an important growth pillar for ADM. More
and more, consumers demand their pets eat the same sustainable,
responsibly - produced food that they themselves eat, and proteins
produced by precision fermentation are key to being part of the
future of the industry. We've expanded our capabilities in these
categories and are proud to be part of the Bond Pet Foods journey,
as they offer new opportunities to bring these growth trends
together."
Bond Pet Foods was founded in 2017 with a mission to create more
sustainable, responsible, and humane food by reimagining meat, the
mainstay of our pets' diets. Dogs and cats are voracious consumers
of animal proteins. However, studies show that the production of
meat and meat by-products for their consumption has an oversized
impact on the environment: if America's 163 million dogs and cats
were their own country, their consumption of meat products would
rank fifth in the world, and up to 30% of meat production's
negative effects (land, water, energy use) can be attributed to
satiating this demand.
Bond is solving for this by employing precision fermentation to
produce nutritionally complete, nature-identical chicken, beef,
fish and other meat proteins for pet food applications. Bond's
production process is safe and established, similar to that
routinely used to make common food ingredients such as lactic acid,
vitamin B12 and enzymes for cheese production- no animal farming
required.
"The company's recent achievements on strain development and
cost, as well as their expanding relationships with global
strategic partners, have validated Bond's technology platform and
their ability to usher in a new era of responsible protein for our
pets," said Jenny Rooke, Managing Director of Genoa Ventures.
"We're bullish about Bond's approach and their potential to change
the pet food supply chain for the better."
"We're thrilled to welcome this diverse, world-class coalition
of investors into the Bond family," added Rich Kelleman, CEO and
Co-Founder of Bond Pet Foods. "With their support we'll be able to
take our work to the next level, developing and scaling a variety
of meat proteins for our valued partners in the pet food
space."
Prior to this Series A round, Bond raised $2.5MM from investors
including Lever VC, Agronomics, KBW Ventures, Plug and Play
Ventures and Trellis Road, bringing its total funding to-date to
$20MM. In November of last year Bond also announced an
industry-first partnership with Hill's Pet Nutrition, to develop a
craft meat protein for its product portfolio.
ABOUT BOND PET FOODS
Bond Pet Foods is a Boulder, Colorado-based company using
biotechnology to create meat proteins that are nutritionally
comparable to their conventional counterparts but without all the
bad stuff- so people, pets, farm animals and the planet all win.
Using some of the same processes that are employed in craft
brewing, Bond produces high-quality animal proteins through
fermentation, harvests them to better meet the nutritional
requirements of companion animals, and supplies the ingredients to
manufacturers for pet food, treat and supplement applications.
For more information on Bond's technology and team visit
bondpets.com or follow @bondpetfoods on Instagram , Linkedin and
Twitter.
MEDIA CONTACT
Heather Krug
Corporate Communications
press@bondpets.com
About Agronomics
Agronomics is a leading listed alternative proteins company with
a focus on cellular agriculture and cultivated meat. The Company
has established a portfolio of 24 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/ .
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 TB Cardew
Limited Cornish Genuity Securities Capital
Limited Limited Plc Limited
The Company Nomad Joint Broker Joint Broker Joint Broker Public Relations
========== ============= =============== =============== ========================
Richard Reed Roland Andrew Giles Balleny Lucy Williams Ed Orlebar
Denham Eke Cornish Potts Max Gould Charles Alistair Walker
James Harry Rees Michael Goodfellow
Biddle Alex Aylen Johnson
(Head of
Equities)
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+44 (0) 20 7930
0777
+44 (0) 1624 +44 (0) +44 (0) +44 (0) +44 (0) +44 (0) 7738
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info@agronomics.im 3396 8000 8900 0936 agronomics@tbcardew.com
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