Ingredients producer shuns VC market for IPO

A Canadian ingredients producer, Algae Dynamics, is turning to the public equity markets instead of the private equity or venture capital markets to raise $2.7 million.

The company believes that a listing on the NASDAQ exchange is its best option to raise capital for the development and commercialisation of its algae processing technology BioSilo, according to co-founder Paul Ramsay.

BioSilo processes algae into refined algal oil, which contains food nutrients such as Omega-3, vitamins and antioxidants and will target the multi-billion dollar US health products industry.

The company has previously been privately funded by government grants amounting to C$1.5 million ($1.3 million; €1,086 million) and C$650,000 of private equity investment from undisclosed investors.

This will be the second capital raising for Algae Dynamics. Under its former name, Carbon Converted Technologies, it raised C$31,000 from two unidentified investors in June this year of a targeted C$51,000 common stock offering.

The biotech industry has received some notable investments this year from the venture capital industry. In May, Khosla Ventures and Otter Capital, two venture capital firms, invested $15 million into Canadian biotech firm BioConsortia. Open Prairie, a US venture capital firm joined a $17 million series B round for NewLeaf Symbiotics, a Missouri based biotech firm. Most recently, Open Prairie joined a $14 million stock offering round for US insecticide firm, Vestaron.