LONDON, UK: Agronomics (AIM:ANIC), the leading listed investment company focused on the field of cellular agriculture, announced that the portfolio company VitroLabs Inc has completed its Series A financing round, raising US$ 46 million. VitroLabs Inc is engaged in cultivated leather production.
This round was led by Agronomics following its US$ 7.0 million investment in September 2021 – see the full announcement here. New Agrarian Company Limited, the private vehicle investing alongside Agronomics, has also participated with a US$ 7.5 million subscription.
Agronomics now holds an equity ownership of 10% on a fully diluted basis and has the right to a board seat. Subject to audit, the VitroLabs position will represent 6.6% of last reported Net Asset Value.
VitroLabs, founded in 2016 and headquartered in Milpitas California, is a biotech company developing a scalable tissue engineering platform for the efficient and environmentally friendly production of leather from only a few cells.
Combining advanced tissue engineering processes with proprietary advances to achieve commercial scale, VitroLabs is on a mission to produce cell cultivated leather that achieves the look, feel and performance of traditional leather without compromise.
The cultivated leather process involves taking a one-time collection of cells from an animal, which then grows in a nutrient-rich environment. Without ever going back to the animal again, the cells grow, divide, and form into tissue.
The composition of the material achieves the complexity of traditional hides, containing a variety of proteins that make up a durable and luxurious material when finished, but without the need to go to animals as an ongoing source of hides. The process is more environmentally sustainable and favorable for animal welfare than that which is used to produce traditional leather. www.vitrolabsinc.com