Simris Alg Ab’s U.S. Success Story
How this SMB from Sweden in the Biotechnology industry made it in the U.S.A
Country Of Origin Sweden
U.S. HQ. New York, USA
Industry Biotechnology
Year Founded 2014
Number Of Employees About 50
Annual revenue $25.8M
About Simris Alg Ab
Simris Alg is a multi-awarded pioneer agribusiness in Southern Sweden producing omega-3 supplements from farmed algae. Fredrika Gullfot founded the company in 2011. Fredrika worked as a researcher at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The company aims to empower healthy and plant-friendly lifestyles by delivering quality algae-based products. Presently, the company operates a unique state of art industrial algae farm for omega-3 production in Sweden. In addition, Simris has opened an office in the USA to foster sales of its products in the US market. The products sell under the proprietary Simris Algae Omega-3 brand. The nutritional information indicates that the product contains health products and superfoods from farmed algae in the Simris select line.
Expanding to the US Market
Simris has been on top of the algae-based products market across the world. Notably, the company has received numerous awards for entrepreneurship, communication, environmental sustainability, and engineering excellence. The company aims to be a landmark business for the bio-based economy in the globe.
In March 2018, the company demonstrated its interest in expanding to the US by getting into agreements that would facilitate the expansion. For instance, the company signed an agreement with the New York-based L’Officiel Fund for the financing of the company’s growth and US expansion. One-third of the funds acquired in the agreement were to be used for marketing purposes with the L’Officiel. This is an iconic French fashion magazine and global platform that recently launched its both print and digital editions in the US.
In December 2017, the L’Officiel Fund was launched together with Global Emerging Markets (GEM) Group. The main aim was to support global and emerging luxury brands with capital and marketing support. Simris founder and CEO Fredrika Gullfot noted that the funding would be spot on for the company’s US expansion.
With the US expansion, the company aims targets to capture the new wellness category that is emerging at the intersection of beauty, fashion, and lifestyle. The financing permits us to execute the company’s expansion plan with full speed. The L’Officiel Fund Managing Director, Anthony Romano highlighted the company’s delight to get into an agreement with Simris into their investment portfolio.
With the agreement between the Simris and L’Officiel Fund came to the share subscription facility. That would permit Simris to issue new shares to L’Officiel Fund in return for cash upon drawdown by the company. The shares were issued at 90% of the average closing bid price during the 15 trading days preceding the drawdown. The number of shares issued was each at drawdown based on the average trading volume during the 15-day pricing period. In the agreement, the L’Officiel Fund committed to buying shares for up to SEK 60 million over three years under these conditions. These conditions would create enough funds to facilitate the company’s US expansion plans.
Financing the US Expansion
Remarkably, Simris Alg has previously raised SEK 68 million in external venture capital. With more agreements with investors, the company brought in additional SEK 50 million through issuing of shares. At present, the company value is estimated at 125 million SEK.
In February 2015, Simris Alg successfully closed a financing round with a final 11 million SEK put towards expanding their algae farm. In turn, that transformed not less than 50 square meters of cultivation to 4 thousand. This would see a boosted production of algae to cater for the US expansion.
In fact, the company began its construction of the current greenhouse in January 2015. A second greenhouse was built adjacent to the first in September. The expansion cost about 50 million SEK, most of which came out of loans and investors.
In January 2018, L’Officiel Fund committed to investing up to SEK 60 million over three years. That would be in the form of a share subscription facility whereby the company issued new shares to L’Officiel Fund in return for cash. The target of this funding was to ease the expansion of the US market. Under the recent agreement, L’Officiel Fund received 2.45 million warrants as part of the deal. Later the deal would be exercised at SEK 14 per share, yielding an additional SEK 34.3 million in funding.
Sources
Note: This company is not a client of, or associated in any other way with, Mount Bonnell Advisors, or has been involved in this publication. This content has been produced using the following information sources in the public domain: