OSLO: Circa Group AS is contemplating capital raise of up to NOK 500 million in addition to a NOK 75 million over-allotment option, with listing on Euronext Growth in Oslo on or about 2 March 2021, a news release said.
Norske Skog has pre-committed to invest NOK 50 million in the capital raise and has entered into a six months lock-up agreement for its shares.
The pre-money equity value of Circa has been set to approximately NOK 1,500 million, and prior to the capital raise Norske Skog holds approximately 32% of Circa’s share capital.
The milestone capital raise will finance the construction of a 1,000 tonnes production facility in France, enable continued commercial entry and the development of new biochemicals. Norske Skog will remain a long-term and supportive shareholder and partner to Circa.
Circa is a biotechnology company established in 2006 with the vision to produce and sell unique and highly valuable biochemicals at scale.
Scientists and engineers have worked for more than 15 years and developed five pilot plants in order to fine-tune and patent what currently is the world’s only scalable production process for these high-value biochemicals.
Norske Skog has supported Circa since 2015, providing process industry and fibre competence to enable scaling of the production technology.
“Norske Skog is very proud to have been a long-term partner to the Circa team in developing their unique biochemicals production technology, as well as a business that will have a significant positive impact on both human health and the environment. Chemicals are widespread in almost every aspect of everyday life, and most of the chemicals we use today are fossil-based. Developing safe and sustainable alternatives at scale is vital to support the industrial green shift,” says Sven Ombudstvedt, CEO of Norske Skog.
Circa’s production process, Furacell, uses abundant and renewable biomass waste to produce the highly privileged biomolecule Levoglucosenone (LGO). The uniqueness of LGO stems from its versatility as a platform molecule to produce multiple high value biochemicals.
Biochemicals produced from the LGO platform have shown strong commercial trial results within agrochemicals, flavours, fragrances, electronics, batteries, paints, graphene, polymers and more.
Cyrene is Circa’s first commercialised biochemical, and it is a novel biobased solvent that can replace existing, toxic and fossil-based solvents like NMP, DMF, DMSO and DCM. There are currently no viable environmental alternatives available at large scale to replace these solvents.
Global chemicals distribution giant, Merck KGaA, has already provided a Letter of Intent for 1,000 tonnes of Cyrene, and other chemical distribution companies have provided similar letters.
“For more than 15 years, scientists and engineers have supported Circa in developing our patented production process and trademarked biochemicals. In recent years, we have experienced significant attention both from the industry and regulatory bodies in bringing our product to market,” says Tony Duncan, CEO of Circa.
“In 2019, Merck introduced Cyrene as a new and greener solvent in their product portfolio. In 2020, we received the EU Flagship Horizon 2020 Grant of EUR 11.6 million to support our construction of a 1,000 tonnes LGO and Cyrene production plant in France. In addition, the EU has granted Cyrene REACH accredition, paving the way for commercial scale market introduction.”
Moreover, Circa Group AS has engaged Pareto Securities AS and SpareBank 1 Markets AS to advise on and effect a contemplated private placement in the Company.
The Private Placement will consist of a primary offering of 29.85 million new shares to be issued by the Company to raise gross proceeds of up to NOK 500 million.
There will also be an over-allotment option of up to 4.45 million additional existing shares, equivalent to approximately 15% of the Primary Offering, or NOK 75 million.
he Primary Shares and the Additional Shares together constitute the offer shares. The total number of Offer Shares offered in the Private Placement is 34,300,000, equating to NOK 575 million.
The price per share in the Private Placement has been set to NOK 16.75, equivalent to a pre-money equity value of the Company of NOK 1,500 million based on the 89,562,580 shares currently outstanding in the Company.
The net proceeds from the Private Placement will predominantly be used to fund the construction of the ReSolute plant in France, while the remaining net proceeds will be used for further market development, development of new products, corporate costs and current operations.
Circa is a biotechnology company established in 2006 with the vision to produce and sell unique and highly valuable biochemicals at scale. Circa has worked with scientists and engineers for more than 15 years and developed five pilot plants in order to fine-tune and patent what is currently the world’s only scalable production process for these highly demanded biochemicals.
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