Roots Sustainable Agricultural raises $2.51 million to expand commercialisation of root zone temperature optimisation

Roots Sustainable Agricultural Technologies Limited (ASX:ROO) has received firm commitments to raise around $2.51 million via a private placement to fund the commercialisation of its 'Root Zone Temperature Optimization' systems and advance other initiatives in the artificial meat market. The Israel-based company is placing 156.875 million CDIs to sophisticated and professional investors at 1.6 cents per CDI, representing a 20% discount to the 5-day volume-weighted average price (VWAP) to August 17, 2020. Everblu Capital Pty Ltd acted as lead manager for the capital raising and will receive a fee of 6% of the total funds raised and, subject to receipt of prior shareholder approval to be sought at a future general meeting, 10,000,000 CDIs. The company is developing and commercialising disruptive, modular, cutting-edge technologies to address critical problems in agriculture, including the plant's climate management and the shortage of water for irrigation. Optimising cultivation Roots has developed proprietary know-how and patents to optimise cultivation performance, lower capital costs of climate management, cut energy consumption and bring maximum benefit to farmers through their two-in-one root zone heating and cooling technology and off-grid irrigation by condensation technology. Roots is a graduate company of the Office of the Israeli Chief Scientist Technological Incubator program. Roots chief executive officer Boaz Wachtel said: “Roots is extremely pleased to report on the successful raise of $2.51 million with the lead managers Everblu Capital under difficult market conditions. “The successful raise demonstrates investors trust in Roots' commercial and technological directions and its management team. “Under COVID-19 market retraction, Roots quickly adjusted its operational expenditures, continued to register IP, enhanced local and international sales efforts and prepared its entry to the artificial meat market on top of the lucrative Cannabis market. “Overall with this successful round, Roots is poised for significant improvement of its business results during the next two quarters and beyond.” CDIs to rank equally The new CDIs will rank equally with that of existing CDIs on issue. Roots had received shareholder approval at its annual general meeting on July 23, 2020, to undertake a placement to raise up to $1.5 million with CDIs to be issued at a price not less than 75% of the 5-day VWAP. Shareholders also approved the issue of up to an additional 40 million CDIs at an issue price of not less than 50% of the 5-day VWAP. The company will also issue 6,979,621 CDIs under its existing placement capacity. Temperature Optimisation Root Zone Temperature Optimization (RZTO) optimises plant physiology for increased growth, productivity and quality by stabilising the plant’s root zone temperature. Using either sophisticated heat pumps and/or ground source heat exchange (GSHE) coils, the technology stabilises root zone temperature year-round by either heating or cooling the roots as needed. Heated or cooled water is pumped in a closed cycle through the pipes installed in the root zone, where the heat or cold is discharged. This significantly increases yields and provides flexibility of growing cycle planting options, improves quality, mitigates extreme heat and cold stress on plants, reduces disease load, all these benefits achieved with a fraction of energy compared with air climate control currently available in the market.