Agronomics raising at least £50m to invest further in portfolio

Cultivated meat and alternative proteins company Agronomics announced a conditional subscription and a conditional placing to raise a minimum of £50m before expenses on Tuesday, to finance further investment in its current portfolio.

The AIM-traded firm said the fundraise was taking place through the proposed issue of at least 227,272,727 new shares at a price of 22p each, with warrants exercisable at 28.5p per share with a two-year expiry, attached to the fundraising shares on a one-for-one basis.

It said the conditional subscription had raised £28.88m through the proposed issue of 131,289,323 new shares at the issue price, with the conditional placing expected to raise at least £21.12m through the issue of a minimum of 95,983,404 shares at the issue price.

It noted that the issue price represented a 24.9% discount to the 20-day volume weighted average price of 29.3p per ordinary share up to and including 10 May.

The issue price was also at a premium of 254% to the latest reported net asset value of 6.22p per share, as at 31 March.

Its board said the net proceeds of the fundraising and broker option would primarily be used to finance further investment into current portfolio companies and projects, investment in new opportunities within the ‘cultivated meat’ sector and other related sectors, and the development and commercialisation of intellectual property where it holds an interest.

“Agronomics has expanded rapidly over the past two years, and this financing will further accelerate its growth,” said executive chairman Richard Reed.

“We anticipate it will provide the full funding to support our existing portfolio companies through their next financing rounds, while also giving us sufficient capital to pursue acquisitions of new investments in this exciting field as it enters into what we expect will be a multi-decade growth phase.”

At 1245 BST, shares in Agronomics were down 29.78% at 25.98p.