November 11, 2020

By Lynda Kiernan, Global AgInvesting Media

Australian biotech startup Provectus Algae announced it has secured $3.25 million in Seed funding led by Hong Kong-based Vectr Ventures. Also participating in the round was Canadian venture capital investor Maropost Ventures and a cohort of unnamed individual investors and family offices.

The company has also recently received financial support in the form of grants valued at US$346,000 from the local government via the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre (AMGC), a part of the Australian Government’s Industry Growth Centre initiative.

“Our vision is a world where sustainable high-quality ingredients for all industries are produced in a way that has a positive environmental impact, Provectus Algae’s technology has the potential to do just that,” said Nusqe Spanton, founder and CEO, Provectus Algae. “We are extremely excited to welcome this stellar group of investors aboard our journey to assist us in making this happen.”

Located in Noosaville, in the state of Queensland, and founded by Nusqe Spanton, a 17-year veteran of the aquaculture industry in Indonesia, Provectus Algae is a synthetic biology company leveraging “Precision Photosynthesis™” technology including proprietary lighting, predictive intelligence, and robotics to optimize algae. 

“Optimization is carried out through a series of high throughput experiments. We are able to quickly establish the optimal conditions for growth and/or other processes within the organism,” said Spanton. 

Currently there are about 300,000 known strains of algae, however there are potentially as many as 5 million. Growing these different strains brings with it a host of challenges, however, due to each species having a specific genome and metabolism that have evolved to thrive in separate and unique ecosystems.

By leveraging technology to precisely control growing environments, Provectus can rapidly produce high-value algal compounds with applications across foods and beverages, agricultural chemical inputs, or animal health – a high-value capability as the algae market shifts its focus away from fuel production. Indeed, the use of Provectus’ proprietary lighting technology has resulted in a 500 percent increase in biomass over a seven-day period in recent tests.

“Our biorefinery platform can precisely control light, CO2, nitrogen and input media,” said Spanton. “This gives us the ability to formulate different recipes and generate predictable results across different batches, producing a variety of compounds at scale.”

Indeed, the market potential for algae-based foods and ingredients appears impressive. The vegetarian market is currently worth $2.8 billion per year and algae is beginning to position itself to leverage consumers’ demands for “free of” foods and foods that cater to specialty diets, reported Fortune. Algae-based oils are already used in 90 percent of infant formulas as a source of healthy fats, however, products are being developed to replace olive and soy oils, and algae-based lipid powders and flours have the potential to replace eggs while providing protein and nutrients and cutting saturated fats.

With demand in place, Provectus has been able to ramp up production while also advancing applications for its products through partnerships with industry leaders, such as Algenuity did with Unilever in July of this year, and Corbion did with Nestlé late last year. But despite forging an agreement with one of the top food and beverage companies in the world, Provectus stated that it’s not at liberty to divulge details. 

Provectus is expected to see numerous product launches in the coming years. The initial commercial products will be food flavorings and agricultural products that are expected to generate $1-$2 million per product per year, with a pipeline consisting of three-to-five products annually. 

In support of that strategic growth, the company has also announced the appointment of plant-based investor, CEO of WildEarth, and founder of Sustainable Food Ventures, Ryan Bethencourt, as director. 

– Lynda Kiernan is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, and HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She is also a contributor to the GAI Gazette. She can be reached at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.