Amyris, Inc. (Emeryville, Calif.; www.amyris.com) and Royal DSM (Heerlen, the Netherlands; www.dsm.com) announced that they have agreed for DSM to make an initial equity investment in Amyris of $25 million, translating into a shareholding of ~12%. At the same time, the companies will enter into a development cooperation focused on products for the global health and nutrition markets (including vitamins and other nutritional ingredients).
Amyris’ technology supports DSM’s strategic markets in health, nutrition, and materials as well as a growing consumer shift to (bio-) natural-like products derived from sustainable sources. For Amyris, DSM’s channels and market access and keen understanding in selecting the right products for the animal nutrition, human nutrition, and consumer health markets provide strategic value.
Subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions, DSM may invest an additional $25 million in Amyris. The first tranche is expected to close on Thursday, 11 May 2017, with a second tranche, if approved by DSM’s Managing Board, expected to close within 90 days of the closing of the first tranche. As part of this investment, DSM will gain one board seat upon the closing of each tranche.
As part of the agreement, DSM and Amyris have agreed to focus on a number of short- to medium-term product development & production opportunities in vitamins and other nutritional ingredients.
“Amyris has a unique yeast-based strain engineering platform that is very complementary to DSM’s capabilities in this area and will create great synergy with DSM’s know-how in fermentation, downstream process development and large-scale manufacturing,” said Chris Goppelsroeder, President & CEO of DSM Nutritional Products. “Working closely together with Amyris and leveraging DSM’s route-to-market, will accelerate our innovation towards cost-effective, fermentation-based processes for both existing and new products.”