Green Bioactives has completed a £2.6m seed financing round led by Eos Advisory, alongside Regenerate Ventures’ Agtech Fund, the Milltrust International Group and Scottish Enterprise; which also provided advisory support.
The money should enable the company to grow its management, production and research team capabilities, allowing it to demonstrate its biomanufacturing approach at larger scale.
Green Bioactives is currently working with several partners to produce natural products derived from plant cell cultures - or bioactives - that cannot be readily produced sustainably or economically using alternative production approaches.
These include a multinational consumer goods company developing foods and drinks, home care, personal care and cosmetics; a multinational biotechnology company developing commercial applications in pharmaceuticals, consumer healthcare and agriculture; and a global agricultural solutions company specialising in crop protection products, seeds and fertilisers.
The funds will also be used to pursue new sector-specific commercial partnerships, to increase marketing efforts and product sales and to secure intellectual property rights and Freedom to Operate on both the company’s core bio-manufacturing process components and its product-specific plant cell lines.
Green Bioactives has already begun hiring for a range of commercial and technical roles across the business.
Andrew Durkie, partner at Eos, will join the board of directors.
He commented: “Green Bioactives represents an exciting, innovative approach to the production of plant-derived natural products, and the company’s ethos of sustainability makes it a stand-out player at a time when companies across a range of industries are searching for more environmentally-friendly and commercially-viable ways to produce these kinds of products.”
David McElroy, chief executive of Green Bioactives, said: “This £2.6m seed funding is an incredibly exciting milestone for Green Bioactives, and we’re delighted to have attracted such a strong international investor base – demonstrating the global commercial potential of our plant cell culture-based bio-manufacturing platform.
“The investment comes at a key time for the company, as we prepare for further growth and continue to develop our technology, working towards our goal of becoming the world’s leading supplier of safe, natural and sustainably-sourced plant-derived products.”
Green Bioactives was founded in 2020 and is currently based at the Roslin Innovation Centre, just outside Edinburgh.
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