Agronomics leads founder's funding round into Liberation Labs

Cellular agriculture investor Agronomics has led the founder's round of Liberation Labs, it announced on Monday, through an initial investment of $0.63m (£0.51m) for a 47% equity stake.

The AIM-traded firm said Liberation Labs was aiming to become the “global leader” of precision fermentation, with purpose-built production facilities for industrial biotechnology.

It said the investment was being made using funds from its own resources.

Agronomics said itself and CPT Capital had “come together” with Liberation Labs' co-founders Mark Warner and Etan Bendheim to “address the pressing need” for modern full-scale precision fermentation facilities.

Investment in precision fermentation companies within the cellular agriculture sector had been increasing, the firm reported, with $1.7bn raised in 2021 alone.

In the US, Agronomics' and CPT Capital's portfolio companies, including Perfect Day, the EVERY Company, Motif FoodWorks and Geltor, were already generating revenues from their precision fermentation produced proteins, which were on the market in the form of dairy, egg and other proteins such as collagens.

As more companies looked to commercialise and scale-up, Agronomics said there was a need for large-scale, cost-competitive manufacturing capacity.

“This is a hugely exciting investment for us, and it is a privilege to help facilitate the first and only precision food fermentation facility,” said Agronomics co-founder and executive director Jim Mellon.

“Existing contract manufacturing capacity will need to be scaled up by 1,000x in the coming decades to facilitate broad based production and adoption of proteins produced via fermentation.

“Liberation Labs' solution will set the standard for the precision fermentation industry with cost effective, reliable and strategically situated facilities to meet growing consumer demand across the globe. It is a crucial step in the advancement of cellular agriculture.”

At 1250 BST, shares in Agronomics were down 1.47% at 17.44p.

Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com.