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Perhaps when the dust has settled, it may be time for ANIC board to reflect on the wisdom of agreeing a fee to Jim Mellon of 15% of any immediate increase in NAV which was more or less effected the following week by announcing a cash fund raise. That's not long term thinking and this is a very long term project.

In the meantime we in the west need to wake up and grow a backbone firstly by supporting Ukraine whatever the cost and I do mean whatever the cost. We need to take food, energy, manufacturing, technology security etc... far more seriously and be much more self sufficient when the proverbial hits the fan. Will that be beneficial for ANIC? Who knows. Short to medium term I'd rather have a cow and some chickens in my back garden than a complicated and expensive precision fermentation plant, but that may change in the future.

Don't get me wrong. I'm invested in this hopefully to achieve many many multiples of return on my investment, but it's only 1% ish of my portfolio and would need to rise by at least say 50x to have an impact on my retirement plan. When I here various people imply that this is a large % of their portfolio, I do wonder if they have considered the odds are stacked against them. But it's these outlandish investments that have a sliver of a chance of being game changers - just don't have all your fake eggs in one basket, or count your fake chickens etc. etc.......

For some more context, according to the US department of agriculture economic research service, in 2019 there were around 36000 food and drink manufacturing and processing facilities in the US alone (from about 31,000 different companies). Of those 36,000 facilities / 31,000 companies in the US only a handful will have a significant market capitalisation. ANIC are invested in about 15-20 startups. The likelihood that any of them will make a significant market impact in this vast ocean of competitors is tiny. Alright, they are bringing something different to the table (literally) but there is no obvious reason (to me) which would lead to the conclusion that a start-up novel food manufacturer has any better chance of making a significant dent in the market than the myriad of conventional competitors who have failed to achieve this. So 6p or 8p may well be a fantastic entry point, but it's significantly more likely to drop to 0p than it will accelerate to ££££'s. I keep saying, you've got to be in it to win it, but I would also encourage everyone to remove their blinkers - just because you are heavily invested and want this to do well and the fact there is a plausible narrative, does not mean that it is remotely likely to work out well. Looking at the existing food/drink market should be a pointer that whilst the overall market size is huge and there are a few huge players in this market they are in the tiny minority. Globally there are 100,000's of food processors bumbling along doing not a lot for investors (I have no doubt many of them started with high hopes). It is hugely more likely that our motley crew of investments will end up in this latter category (or fail altogether in common with most startups).

For a bit of context re. fees and fundraising.
Future Meat raised $347million in December - all without Jim Mellon.
Investors are balking at Tim Cook (CEO of Apple) pay aware of something like $99million. Market Cap of Apple is about 16,000+ times that of ANIC, but pay is about 10x and investors are disgruntled......

Gonsan - I disagree that Mellon has philanthropic motives on this one. Why the 15% fee on any increase in NAV? He got paid something like £9million last year on the basis of taking a 15% cut of the fund raise money which accounted for the overwhelming majority of the increase in NAV. This would have put him round about the top 10 best paid CEO's of a FTSE 100 company, and we ain't there yet!! The market potential is indeed huge and that being the case then a) I would expect the money would have been raised almost as easily without Mellon taking a 15% cut (no one else seems to have had a problem raising funds) and b) I would rather save the 15% and invest it in these exciting startups. Creaming off 15% to stifle that investment is not my definition of philanthropy.

Does anyone know who these shares have been purchased from? I am a slightly suspicious and sceptical person by nature and it would not necessarily surprise me if the existing shareholder whom these shares have been purchased from is none other than Jim Mellon. I just thought the wording of the RNS was evasive in that respect.

Not sure if this link will work, but may be worth signing up for the following event:

https://meatthefuture.com/flagship-series/

If the link doesn't work, just Google "meatthefuture flagship series". Event on 23rd Feb discussing progress on getting a product on the market (focussed on the US)

Having tried a McPlant burger for the 1st time over the weekend, I would hope ANIC don't top up on plant based products - they're just not that good. They may have their foot in the door right now, but for all the claims that this is "just like the real thing", it absolutely is not. The taste and texture of the McPlant burger is nothing like a beef patty and that is what they have to aim for to convert meat eaters. I'm not sure if they are trying to offer something different - I didn't think so, I thought the point was that it was supposed to look like, feel like and taste like meat. It doesn't and Beyond Meat / McDonalds is probably about as good as it gets just now. Extrapolating across that all plant based meat substitutes will have similar issues (though doubtless they will improve), I would have thought they will be easily displaced by a cultured meat product if and when it becomes cost competitive. This assumes of course that the cultured meat industry is telling the truth that their product is indistinguishable from the real thing. So I would vote to keep the money for the 100% cultured meat products and forget about plant alternatives.

I suspect the share price is not moving (or moving in the wrong direction) for a multitude of reasons in addition to your suggestion - a few thoughts:
1 - With rising interest rates, the vast majority of growth stocks are being hit. Future profits are just not worth as much as profits now. Given this is an especially speculative growth stock, it is reasonable to expect that this should be hurt more than most.
2 - Investee companies costs of doing business are going up, either with rising staff costs or increased material costs to build their spoffy new facilities. All the money Mellon raised is now buying less.
3 - Almost certainly their facilities will require microchips of which there is a well heralded global shortage. All their controllers, variable speed pumps, fans and stirrers will be affected (lead time for what was previously off the shelf variable speed EC fan may now be up to 12 months). So the money Mellon raised is buying less and buying you slower progress.
4 - Mellon is taking a 15% cut - that's just not good.
5 - People are wising up to the fact that this won't be plain sailing - look at the share prices of Oatly and Beyond Meat in recent months - not pretty reading and these guys are miles ahead of where the cultured products industry is right now.

In the end though, if you are a long term investor rather than a day trader, just don't look for the next few years and then maybe you'll get a nice surprise when you open your eyes again.

Shellbay fees are simply not justified. Assuming more or less 100% of that goes into Jim Mellon's pocket, then that would have just put him outside the top 10 of best paid FTSE 100 CEO's last year. ANIC are a speculative punt of a company, not a FTSE 100 giant. I suspect if you look at other novel startup industries, by and large the top tier of management will not be taking exorbitant fees - they'll be paid in stock with the hope of more jam tomorrow, but accepting if they don't deliver then they make not a lot e.g. Elon Musk takes pretty much no cash out of the company but has high stockholding and stoick awards so he lives or dies by how well the company does, not on how much he can raise from investors in order to skim off his 15%.

I'm just pleased HL customers are being offered the right to participate this time. Well done ANIC for listening, recognizing you got it wrong last time and correcting for this time.

idg69 - as someone has pointed out, I don't think this is really the same as "dilution". I think they used the phrase that you just now have a smaller share of a bigger pie, and I think that's correct. I think you will only be diluted if the NAV in 2 years time is much higher than the warrant price and warrant holders get to buy in at massive discount to NAV, but I don't actually think that will happen. I think they will get a modest bargain but not a lot - just enough to entice them to take part in the placing. Remember the "big" announcement by Upside Foods (and I do realise we are not invested in them, but they are one of the more advanced players in this market) that they can now process the equivalent of a few dozen chickens per day? They need to upscale this by a factor of 1000 - 2000 to compete with conventional food producers and I don't see them getting near that within the next couple of years. When they do, that will drive the real re-rating.

Dazzle345 - You say you like "almost everything else about the company", but I would (and have previously) challenge that. I think there is 101 things not to like about ANIC but what it does have going for it is being in at the early stages of a novel industry. I'm sticking with them because they are pretty much the only show in town, but do do be blind to the fact that share price movements over the past few weeks have been pure short termist profit making by insiders at the expense of average Joe. What do you like about that?

My biggest beef (pun somewhat intended) is that those who were clearly in the know were able to pump up the price and the offload at a premium. I think that's just one of the problems you need to live with when investing in small cap stocks.

I've been asking the same question myself and for what it's worth I do think there is skullduggery in the background, but to be absolutely clear I have no basis for saying this other than I have a perception that that's just what happens in the AIM market. In the interests of balance though, on Black Monday the Dow Jones fell about 23% in one day on no news....and the day after Pearl Harbour it only fell about 4%. Go figure.

From what I can see there is no sell off in the wider market and post-COP sell off would seem bizarrely short sighted. Who on earth would buy a share like this when every other commentary makes the point its the food of the future i.e. decades timescale, then sell of within days? I'm still thinking something more is brewing...........

Any thoughts on current 5% drop?

Re. today's RNS, is a potato really a tropical crop??

Barwickman - I didn't mean to come across as offended. I would like to describe my post as realistic rather than negative. you shouldn't have corrected your "will be" to "might be" re. the tough road ahead! I will guarantee you it's a tough road ahead! Their stated ambition is to scale up their current EPIC facility to the equivalent of around 500 chickens per day (400,000lbs/year). The current capacity is equivalent to about 60 chickens per day. From that starting point they need to scale up (competitively) by a factor of 1600 or so to match the output of a modest size UK producer which has something like 5% of UK market share. I'm not saying the challenge is insurmountable - if I was, I wouldn't be invested here, but I'm not counting my chickens (well I kind of am, but not in that sense!!).

There will doubtless be many facilities but you seem to be objecting to me stating the obvious that when this was announced as "Big Big", that it really was Chicken Little. Banham Poultry in Norfolk processes 650,000 chickens per week. nigh on 100,000 per day. Upside Foods "Big Big" / Chicken Little facility churns out the equivalent of 500 or so per day. That's simply not impressive compared to what the market requires. I'm merely pointing out it's an uphill struggle, but once again would point out that because the odds are stacked against this technology, on the slim chance it does manage to competitively scale up the potential rewards are huge. But be in no doubt, when 500 chickens per day is announced as groundbreaking news there is an extremely long and challenging road ahead.