TIDMANIC
RNS Number : 6222D
Agronomics Limited
22 June 2023
22 June 2023
Agronomics Limited
("Agronomics" or the "Company")
Portfolio Company CellX Raises US$ 6.5 million in New
Funding
Agronomics (ANIC:LSE), the leading listed company focused on the
field of cellular agriculture, is pleased to announce that Chinese
cultivated meat company, CellX Limited ("CellX"), has raised US$
6.5 million in new funding from third parties to accelerate the
development of its cultivated meat products as they near
commercialisation.
Agronomics has invested a total of US$ 2.05 million in CellX
since its inception in 2020, first investing US$ 50,000 in December
2020 , followed by an additional investment of US$ 2 million in May
2022 . The position, subject to audit, will now be carried at US$
3.61 million, including an unrealised gain on cost of US$ 1.56
million on its total investment, representing an internal rate of
return of 62% and a multiple on invested capital of 1.76x. The
CellX position accounts for approximately 1.82% of the last
published Net Asset Value of Agronomics (31 March 2023). Following
the new funding round, Agronomics has an equity ownership of 4.98%
on a fully diluted basis in CellX. To date, CellX has raised over
US$ 20 million, making it what Agronomics believes to be China's
most funded cellular agriculture startup.
CellX is a cellular agriculture company based in Shanghai,
working to bring cultivated meat products to consumers in China and
around the world. Founded in 2020, CellX has built research &
development platforms across the four major technological pillars
of cultivated meat, cell line development, media optimisation,
novel bioprocess design, and end product innovation.
The latest funding round will finance CellX's move towards the
pilot-scale production of its cultivated meat products. Of its more
than 10 cell lines, CellX has already adapted five into suspension
culturing, and the leading cell line has now entered the pilot
stage. In just three years, CellX has also developed multiple
serum-free media and improved the yield significantly - currently
scaling up to 2,000L - enabling it to drastically reduce production
costs.
Earlier this year, CellX announced its plan to build China's
first cultivated meat pilot production facility, hosting multiple
thousand-litre bioreactors to provide an interactive space for
consumers to taste CellX's demo products. This facility will be
China's first "transparent food space" for cultivated meat Research
& Development, pilot production, and public tasting.
Jim Mellon, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Agronomics,
said :
"We have backed CellX since the very beginning. The company is
at the forefront of Cultivated Meat production in China and is on
track to help serve one of the world's largest meat producers with
a low-cost, ethical and sustainable alternative. This latest
funding round will give them the necessary capital to continue on
their path to scalability through pilot-scale production, continued
research and development and public tasting exhibitions. CellX has
made significant strides in just three years and is firmly on track
to become a leader in the cultivated meat market."
Ziliang Yang, Co-Founder and CEO of CellX, said :
"Meat is a commodity that needs to be consistently produced at a
competitive cost and large scale. Each year, China alone consumes
over 100 million tons of meat, more than a quarter of global
consumption. For cultivated meat to have a meaningful impact on our
global food supply chain, production at low cost and at scale is
key.
Unfortunately, no company in our space has fully cracked the
puzzle of production at low cost and scale, as yet. This is where
CellX and China can add value. Thanks to China's booming biopharma
industry and fermentation sector, there is already an extensive
ecosystem in place, including media and equipment at competitive
pricing, as well as a large pool of talented bioprocess engineers.
All of which will enable companies to produce cultivated meat at a
significantly lower cost in China."
About CellX
CellX is a cellular agriculture company based in Shanghai,
working to bring cultivated meat products to consumers in China and
around the world. Its goal is to provide a sustainable source of
animal protein, better health for all human beings, and improved
animal welfare. Founded in 2020, CellX has built a top R&D team
of 40 and raised US$ 20 million. The team focuses on building
platform technologies with a multi-species approach.
CellX is collaborating with top universities and leading
companies around the world to advance the commercialization of
cultivated meat. The company is also accelerating market launch and
cultivated meat approval in the APAC region
More information at www.cellx.cn
About Agronomics
Agronomics is a leading listed company with a focus on cellular
agriculture and cultivated meat. The Company has established a
portfolio of over 20 companies 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 and be 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$5 billion has been invested worldwide
since the industry's inception in 2016.
For further information please contact:
Agronomics Beaumont Canaccord Cenkos Peterhouse SEC Newgate
Limited Cornish Genuity Securities Capital
Limited Limited Plc Limited
The Company Nomad Joint Broker Joint Broker Joint Public Relations
Broker
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Richard Reed Roland Andrew Giles Balleny Lucy Williams Bob Huxford
Denham Eke Cornish Potts Michael Charles Anthony Hughes
James Harry Rees Johnson Goodfellow
Biddle Alex Aylen
(Head of
Equities)
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+44 (0) 1624 +44 (0) +44 (0) +44 (0) +44 (0)
639396 207 628 207 523 207 397 207 469
info@agronomics.im 3396 8000 8900 0936 agronomics@secnewgate.co.uk
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June 22, 2023 07:42 ET (11:42 GMT)
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