Smart Agro, the first agro-tech partnership in the field of agro-tech on the stock exchange, began trading in Tel Aviv today (Tuesday) under the name (SMAG) after completing its share issue last week, in which it raised NIS 26 million, when excessive demand of approx. The issue was carried out through Leumi Partners Underwriters, and the mix of investors included strategic investors, institutional entities and private investors from the public.
Smart Agro is the fourth R&D partnership to be traded on the Israeli Stock Exchange, and the first in the field of agro-tech. The company is led by a management team with extensive knowledge of the agro-tech industry and related industries: CEO Omri Rotman, has 25 years of experience , About half of them in agro-tech companies, with an extensive background in finance. In the past, he served, among other things, as CFO of a sustainable bio-agritech company from Moshav Sharona in the Galilee, as CFO of the Challenge Venture Capital Fund, which previously managed about $ 200 million, and led and managed issues, mergers and acquisitions in Israel and abroad.
Limor Stoller, CPA’s VP of Finance and Business Development, served until recently, until recently the CEO of Rootility, which developed a method for improving the plant’s roots. .
The chairman of the board, Erez Meltzer, has over 30 years of managerial experience, and in the past was the CEO of Gadot Chemicals, the CEO of Africa Israel and the CEO of Netafim. In recent years, Meltzer has served as the active chairman of Hadassah Medical Centers, while at the same time concentrating on investing and managing the agro-tech and biomed fields.
Smart Agro focuses on agro-tech companies from the Israeli market that are considered innovative when it comes to technologies for the agricultural industry, among other things due to the broad agricultural background of entrepreneurs, agronomic institutions at an international level (Faculty of Agriculture of the Hebrew University, Technion and Volcanic Institute). And a topographic structure that allows for a very short distance different growing environments. In Israel, it should be noted, there are currently about 440 agro-tech companies, according to the database of Startup Nation Central.
Smart Agro has already chosen its first investment: CanBreed, which was established in early 2017 and is developing improved seed genetics, based on a genetic editing technology called CRISPR. CRISPR is the most advanced technology among all the NBT (New Breeding Techniques) technologies used by the agro-tech industries to improve agricultural crops.
Recently, the two scientists who developed it won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work. CRISPR technology enables accurate cutting of sperm DNA, in order to silence or activate genes. Therefore, the technology has enormous potential in the fields of medicine and agriculture.
The target markets that Canbrid is targeting are estimated at billions of dollars, and it will provide a solution for many needs, from the need to adapt the plant structure to mechanical harvesting, increase its protein content and adapt its growth to the changing climate.
In the case of the cannabis market, the company offers solutions for all market segments: from medical cannabis, through industrial cannabis to cannabis strains with a specific chemical profile suitable for the pharma industry. Canbridge will launch its beta product to this market by the end of this year. Smart Agro plans to invest $ 2 million in the company.
These were the details of the news New on the stock exchange: Smart Agro began trading on the... for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.
It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at news1.news and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.
