Corporate team advises crop protection discovery company on £35 million funding round

Posted: 20/06/2022

The corporate team at Penningtons Manches Cooper has advised Oxford based moa Technology Ltd on the completion of their £35 million ($44 million) Series B financing round.

moa is a crop protection company spun out from Oxford University. Its proprietary technology uses miniaturized plants to work to discover new modes of action that can control resistant weeds that plague farmers worldwide. Its three proprietary platforms, GALAXY, TARGET, and SELECT, uniquely utilise miniaturized living plants in combination with cutting-edge techniques in genetics, phenotypic analysis and data analytics to rapidly screen hundreds of thousands of natural and synthetic chemistries to find those that work differently.

This investment was co-led by new investor Lansdowne Partners and existing investors Oxford Science Enterprises and Parkwalk Advisors, with participation from existing investors BGF Investments, Bits x Bites Growth Fund, IP Group and University of Oxford.

The Penningtons Manches Cooper team advising moa was led by corporate partner James Went with corporate associate Leo Shrimpton, and included support from corporate tax partner Kathy Hills and associate Leonie Langley.

Dr Virginia Corless, Chief Executive Officer for moa said “This funding will enable us to accelerate the development of the most promising leads in our abundant pipeline and deliver the novel safe and sustainable products necessary for us all – farmers, consumers, anyone with an interest in the food we grow and eat – to be able to count on a safe, reliable, and resilient agricultural industry for the future. We’re grateful to James Went and the Penningtons Manches Cooper team for their help in making it all happen.”

James Went, corporate partner at Penningtons Manches Cooper said: “We are delighted to have advised moa on their Series B financing. They’re addressing one of the truly hard challenges of today in developing safe and sustainable herbicides to support farmers producing food for the growing global population. We look forward to continuing to support them on their journey.”

The team at Penningtons Manches Cooper specialises in advising innovative technology companies, focused on solving global sustainability issues, on all aspects of their legal needs, having recently advised both Bramble Energy on their Series B fundraising and First Light Fusion, who recently achieved a world first fusion result, on their Series C fundraising.

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