Jan 17, 2022

Botanical Solution Inc. secures $6.1M in Series A first closing

Botanical Solution Inc. (BSI), innovator of sustainable, consistent and cost-effective Advanced Botanical Materials for agricultural and pharmaceutical applications, announced Jan. 17 it has successfully closed $6.1 million in a Series A round led by Palo Alto based VC Firm, Otter Capital.

This round of funding will enhance BSI’s value proposition by facilitating the geographic expansion of its current botanical-based products and development of a new product pipeline derived from its proprietary biotech platform.

For agricultural markets, this Series A round of funding will support the production and sales growth of BSI’s first commercially successful product marketed as BotriStop and its recently announced global brand Quillibrium, which are based on a tissue cultured tree native to Chile, the Quillaja saponaria. The product has been used successfully on a wide variety of fruits and vegetables throughout Chile. Quillibrium was launched in Peru last year with great success and will soon reach growers across Mexico through BSI’s main distribution partner Syngenta.

Quillibrium continues regulatory progress in the U.S. and will soon initiate registration in additional countries to expand its global footprint.  This new funding will also accelerate market readiness of new botanical biopesticide products currently in later development stages and enable the expansion of BSI’s R&D pipeline.

For pharmaceutical markets, BSI’s new funding will vastly increase the quantity of Quillaja saponaria plants that can be grown at BSI’s labs and the sustainable production of billions of doses of gold standard adjuvant QS-21, traditionally obtained from old native trees that are increasingly affected by climate change and strict deforestation laws in Chile.  QS-21 is currently used in COVID-19 and malaria vaccines, as well as a blockbuster shingles vaccine. With this funding BSI will become a major supplier of pharmaceutical grade QS-21.

“The BSI team is really excited to welcome Otter Capita,” BSI CEO Gastón Salinas said in a news release. We are happy to reconfirm the strong commitment from our current investors, as well.   BSI is building strong foundations to deliver the world’s most advanced botanical biopesticides and ensure the supply of the gold standard vaccine adjuvant QS-21.”

According to John Pasquesi, Managing Member at Otter Capital, “I am excited to partner with BSI.  BSI has established a strong market presence via distribution agreements with Syngenta and effective, profitable products.  BSI’s product development platform is efficient and scalable.  Botanical products have excellent consistency and BSI’s approach is truly sustainable.  These products have applications in two very large markets – agriculture and pharmaceuticals.  I am very impressed by the team at BSI and the progress they have made with limited resources under Gaston’s leadership.”

Two longtime  investors joining Otter Capital in this First Closing of the Series A  are Inversiones el Coigue and Inversiones Eurocel, both based in Santiago, Chile.

BSI, a Delaware corporation has a proprietary R&D platform for truly sustainable and improved production of consistent and high- quality Advanced Botanical Materials (ABM).

ABM-01 is the first ABM produced by the company, based on a tissue cultured plant called Quillaja saponaria. ABM-01 is the active ingredient used in two gold standard products, BSI’s biopesticide Quillibrium and the adjuvant QS-21, used in modern vaccine development.

To learn more visit www.botanical-solution.com.

Otter Capital was founded by John Pasquesi to make a variety of private equity investments. Otter Capital has a strong track record investing in leading edge agriculture companies. Otter was an early and consistent investor in AgraQuest, a leading biopesticide company where  Pasquesi served as chairman of the board of directors.

In 2012, Bayer CropScience acquired AgraQuest for $425 million.  More recently, Otter Capital invested in the agricultural biotechnology companies BioConsortia, Inc. and NewLeaf Symbiotics Inc. Pasquesi serves on the board of directors of BioConsortia and as chairman of the board of NewLeaf.  Otter Capital is an investor in Inguran LLC dba Sexing Technologies, the world’s leading supplier of sexed semen to the dairy industry and a leading provider of dairy and beef genetics. Pasquesi serves on the board of managers of Inguran.