CO2 GRO has unique technology to accelerate the growth of plants and lower costs to farmers
CO2 GRO (GROW: TSX-V, BLONF: OTCQB, 4021: Frankfurt) Vice President of Sales and Strategic Alliances Aaron Archibald joined Steve Darling to discuss more about the company which naturally and safely dissolves CO2 gas into water creating an aqueous CO2 solution which is then misted directly on plant leaves.
Aaron Archibald talks about why there is such a need for what they do and also about their recent financing with Ospraie Ag Science LLC and where they plan on deploying that capital.
We are here with Aaron Archibald of CO2 GRO Inc. (ticker symbols GROW: TSX-V, BLONF: OTCQB, 4021: Frankfurt). Aaron heads CO2 GRO’s Sales and Strategic Alliances.
Aaron, can you give us a brief background of CO2 GRO’s mission to revolutionize plant growth, your target markets and how your technology works.
Thank you, Steve.
Our Mission is to accelerate the growth of all value plants safely, efficiently and profitably using our patented advanced CO2 Delivery Solutions™ systems. We estimate 85% of all indoor plant growers worldwide cannot supplement their plants with CO2 gassing. That includes greenhouses, hoop houses, shade houses, grow tunnels, urban and vertical grow units in soil, hydroponic and aeroponic grow settings.
Our CO2 Delivery Solutions™ systems offer the same 30% plant yield improvements for all of them, matching the yields at high cost sealed greenhouses using more expensive CO2 gassing. However, we use up to 90% less CO2 than they do and the capital costs of installing our CO2 Delivery Solutions™ systems are much lower in a new greenhouse build. In addition, the thin CO2 film our systems apply to plant leaves provide outstanding pathogen plant protection naturally. That is not available to growers using CO2 gassing or growers that just have atmospheric CO2.
Our CO2 technology works by precisely delivering aqueous CO2 mist only to plant leaves where almost all CO2 is absorbed by plants to grow for minutes per day. CO2 gassing requires raising the CO2 concentration in 100% of the greenhouse atmosphere to the desired CO2 level for 6-12 hours per day. This is why we use 90% less CO2 to get the same 30% plant yield lift.
Tell us about your recent equity financing with Ospraie Ag Sciences LLC.
US based Ospraie is a long-term Strategic Ag Science investor that took 85% of our just announced US $1M (C $1.38M) fully subscribed equity offering. Their involvement validates our Precision Ag technology and its global prospects. If all attached warrants are exercised, that would bring in another US $1.3M.
This additional capital will allow us to invest in expanding our sales and technical force, do additional market focused research and development and other initiatives which we believe will lead to accelerating market penetration and revenues.
Ospraie’s investing Mission is to find Ag Tech companies globally that do more with less sustainably. They concluded our CO2 Delivery Solutions™ technology does this with large global revenue potential from the world’s indoor plant grow facilities that cannot gas with CO2.
In addition, Ospraie’s agricultural experience and breadth of agricultural network connections worldwide should also help us accelerate our Precision Agriculture technology’s roll-out. Ospraie will also take a CO2 GRO Board seat. All of Ospraie’s Partners have a long history at major Ag Companies like Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto and Syngenta. Their input will be invaluable in advancing CO2 GRO.
How is CO2 GRO progressing in 2020 and what can investors expect going forward?
For 2020 to date, we have announced 23 commercial feasibility greenhouse projects to use our automated technology in pre-purchase commercial assessments. All are assessing the potential value lift our technology brings, the degree of plant pathogen resistance they get and one is interested in measuring the benefits of our system’s CO2 usage versus their CO2 gassing system usage. We believe we will cut their CO2 gas bill by 90%.
In the US, our projects are in Missouri, California, Michigan and Florida greenhouses for hemp, cannabis and lettuce. We have three in Canadian cannabis and hemp greenhouses, one in a Colombia rose greenhouse and one in a UAE lettuce greenhouse. We have also announced marketing agreements with Ag-Industrial partners in the UAE and Israel who are advancing our CO2 Delivery Solutions™ systems to their customer bases.
As we have pre-built inventory to cover 5 million square feet of plant cultivation area, we can rapidly respond to purchase orders. We also have no direct competition to date so we can be flexible on pricing our patent protected CO2 Delivery Solutions™ and our shareholders can benefit from selling into a broadly diversified global indoor plant market.
While the Covid-19 environment is more challenging, we do have regional sales forces and contractors to install our CO2 Delivery Solutions™ systems in North America, the Middle East and now in Colombia. When COVID-19 travel restrictions ease, we plan to expand into Spain which has the largest greenhouse market globally and the Netherlands, which is known for its greenhouse technology companies and is the largest floriculture exporter globally.
For 2021, having a stronger balance sheet and Ospraie’s endorsement will open more doors to larger customers faster than we could open them on our own. Management still owns 20% of CO2 GRO post Ospraie’s investment so we care a great deal about increasing shareholder value. Management continues to work without cash compensation until CO2 GRO becomes EBITDA positive, another example of our commitment to increasing shareholder value.
Thank you for hosting us today Steve. Please look us up under www.co2gro.ca and if of further interest, reach out to our IR team of Sam Kanes, VP Communications at 416-315-7477 or Michael O’Connor Manager Investor Relations at 604-317-6197.
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