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Hello everyone, thought it would be worth tallying up investments so far:
£3.2 for Formo
£7m for Vitro Labs
£4m for California Cultured
£3m for Solar Foods
The results of the fundraising where £62m. So there is still around £45m left to invest.
Hi everyone - nice movement of the SP this week and interesting someone jumping the gun on warrants.
Liked the interview. I do think it suggests that ANIC will participate in Ivy Farm's second round of funding. Remember there is still something around £50m in the bank.
The only other thing to note is:
- approval for fish expected early next year
- confidence Jim has in Vitro Labs. Price of lab grown leather comparable to actual leather.
Hope everyone has been doing well.
I think you are comparing apples and oranges. The question is if Agronomics comparable to other VCs listed on AIM or similar exchanges. For the field of cellular agriculture, then there really is no alternative. It's difficult to quantify. For example, if Mellon is right and Vitro Labs is more advanced than Modern Meadow, then the 15% stake in VitroLabs is a game changer. That could only have been possible due to the close relationship between ANIC and Vitro Labs. Time will tell whether fee will be worth it.
I think there is a degree of growing too big too quickly. They have hired a Senior Analyst and Analyst over the summer and I believe there is now a new Investment Advisory Board which has been set up. Hopefully we will see more regular activity moving forward.
This makes sense. Oritan doesn't quite fit within the direction of the Agronomics portfolio and specialty.
I have been slowly reading Moo's Law and the £7m investment in Vitro Labs makes much more sense through Mellon's perspective. Some important quotes from the book:
"VitroLabs already has prototypes, including leather watch straps and wallets, orders in hand, and a clear business strategy. This is a company that makes a whole load of sense to me as an investor, and I urge readers to follow its progress. It has made substantial progress in R&D since its inception, arguably at a much swifter pace than Modern Meadow.
It is clear that this is a no-brainer white space: VitroLabs is establishing barriers to entry partly through a patent-driven approach. In May 2016 they filed their first patent for ‘Engineered Skin Equivalent, Method of Manufacture and Products Derived therefrom’, which has been granted. They also have multiple provisional patents filed in the bioreactor and cell-line space."
That's great news. ANIC had a 7% diluted stake from it's 0.7m investment in July 2019 - so we should see a pretty big IRR given the move to Series A.
It doesn't seem as though Agronomics participated in this funding round though: "Hanwha Solutions of South Korea led the funding round and was joined by existing investors SOSV’s IndieBio, TechU Ventures, ff VC and Siddhi Capital."
You do get that impression reading the previous press releases that there is a close relationship between Mellon/Reed and the cofounder Dr. Ilic, quite an impressive background. https://www.vitrolabsinc.com/company
Today's news: "Agronomics, the leading listed alternative proteins company focused on cellular agriculture and cultivated meat, is pleased to announce it has led portfolio company VitroLabs Inc's ("VitroLabs") Series A funding round with a US$ 7.0 million investment... therefore, in total, Agronomics will hold an equity ownership of 14.65% on a fully diluted basis and will have the right to a board seat."
Really interesting move and good to see a 40% uplift from its previous investment, particularly for one of the other portfolio companies. A 15% stake is pretty massive, particularly if VitroLabs is able to make it to further funding rounds.
We are bound to get more many more reports of this nature. Especially once profits of big multinationals with a stake in meat become threatened. We've seen it with tobacco and oil. The benefit is that people can see right through these hit pieces these days!
Happy to report that I kept the faith and averaged down over the previous five months and my investment today finally turned a profit!
Looking forward to now continuing to add to my position overt the next few years.
Now that it looks like 28p is likely - can someone with a bit more knowledge explain the additional cash injection warrants might bring if exercised next year? Feels like once all the cash is invested, ANIC's portfolio could be an absolute monster given their initial FORMO investment is already 7.5x its value. (And someone else just pointed out many portfolio companies' true value haven't been reflected in the current NAV price yet).
There is a Centrica report which was done in May which calculates that the real valuation of ANIC's investments is around 23p. This was done before they raised £66m. Given this shows already a 7.5x increase, and the report was conservative, I think more good news should surely be around the corner.