7^th September 2022
 

Agronomics Limited

("Agronomics" or the "Company")

Portfolio Company Onego Bio Awarded EUR 4.5M in Grant Funding

Agronomics (AIM:ANIC), the leading listed company focused on the field of cellular agriculture, is pleased to announce that portfolio company Onego Bio Ltd ("Onego Bio"), a company developing sustainable and animal free egg proteins via precision fermentation, has been awarded EUR 4.5 million in grant funding from Business Finland. This additional non-dilutive funding will allow Onego Bio to accelerate research and development of their egg protein - Bioalbumen™, as they move towards commercialisation.

Agronomics holds 340,237 shares in Onego Bio, representing an equity ownership of 19.94% on a fully diluted basis following its investment in February 2022. Agronomics currently carries this position in its accounts at cost of EUR 6.9M. Based on the last reported Net Asset Value ("NAV") as at 30 June 2022, the Onego Bio position represents 4.1% of NAV.

The full Onego Bio announcement is set out below without any material changes:

Onego Bio secures EUR 4.5M additional funding to accelerate research and development

Onego Bio is a Finnish biotechnology company producing animal-free egg white with precision fermentation. With the new funding granted by Business Finland, the company can accelerate the research and development of Bioalbumen™ production even further. The company's solution rises to the major global challenges of food production and sustainable development.

HELSINKI, Finland (September 7th, 2022) Onego Bio is a biotech spin-off from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. The company uses a commercially proven Trichoderma technology to solve environmental problems associated with eggs, one of the world's most used animal proteins. This safe, sustainable and cost-effective precision fermentation method produces ovalbumin, the most abundant egg white protein, and the team believes this chosen technology is superior because of its efficiency and productivity.

Onego raised EUR 10 million seed funding from Agronomics and Maki VC in February, and now Business Finland, a public organization under the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy, has awarded a grant of additional EUR 4.5 million for Onego Bio's research and development work. Business Finland's funding makes it possible to increase the project's resourcing and speed up its implementation, which improves its business expectations and positive social and environmental effects.

According to Business Finland, the company's solution rises to the major global challenges and development trends in food production. It has significant international business potential, and promotes sustainable food production, food security and the fight against climate change. The funded project also promotes the commercialization of public research findings into a global competitive advantage and has a significant positive impact on the development of the company's business.

"Since our founding in February 2022, our team has been working hard to launch remarkable development projects, recruiting talented new team members, as well as generating business plans and commercial scenarios. With the help of this amazing additional funding, we can focus on even more complex and ambitious R&D areas and keep our risk appetite and performance requirements high", says Maija Itkonen, CEO and co-founder of Onego Bio.

Cellular agriculture uses microorganisms and bioreactors instead of traditional animal farming and can provide the same beloved food ingredients that are used every day but decoupled from the animal agriculture systems. Because of its unique functional properties, egg white is difficult to replace with alternative ingredients and it's often the last frontier before entirely animal-free products can be manufactured. Onego Bio provides the nutritional and functional upsides of egg white, without the environmental, ethical and safety-related concerns. The company aims to launch its first product Bioalbumen™ as a food ingredient for food industry and later enter the consumer market with its own branded products for baking and cooking.

For further information, please contact:

Laura Toppinen

Head of Brand & Communications

Onego Bio Ltd

laura@onego.bio

About Onego Bio

Onego Bio Ltd is a game-changing biotech company producing animal-free egg proteins with precision fermentation. When implemented in full scale, this new production method provides significant benefits to the environment, food security, as well as animal welfare. The team believes the chosen technology is superior because of its efficiency and productivity. Based on the anticipatory LCA published in Nature Food, the technology shows potential to significantly reduce most agriculture-associated impacts, such as global warming and land use.

Egg is one of the world's most used animal proteins and difficult to replace with alternative ingredients. Onego Bio will make it possible to manufacture the same delicious foods entirely animal-free. Company aims to launch its first product Bioalbumen™ as a food ingredient for food industry and later enter the consumer market with its own branded products for baking and cooking. Bioalbumen provides the nutritional and functional upsides of egg white, without the environmental, ethical and safety-related concerns. 

Founded in 2022 by Maija Itkonen (CEO), Christopher Landowski (CTO) and Jussi Joensuu (COO), Onego Bio is a VTT spin-off that salutes the remarkable work done by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland for the next level cell ag products and applications. Onego Bio's mission is to rethink eggs and give people access to sustainable, delicious and healthy animal-free food. Learn more at www.onego.bio and follow our journey in LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

Founded in 2022 by Maija Itkonen (CEO), Christopher Landowski (CTO) and Jussi Joensuu (COO), Onego Bio is a VTT spin-off that salutes the remarkable work done by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland for the next level cell ag products and applications. Onego Bio's mission is to rethink eggs and give people access to sustainable, delicious and healthy animal-free egg protein.

Learn more at www.onego.bio and follow our journey in LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

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: