ZeaKal, a plant science company incubated from the pipeline of Kapyon Ventures, LLC, is pleased to announce it has completed a $3.8M Series A raise to develop its HME technology platform across major crops. The investment, led by Finistere Ventures, Two Oceans and the Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council (MSMC), and supported by ZeaKal's Executive Chairman, Dr. Jerry Caulder, provides ZeaKal the means to focus on specific crop targets including soybeans and rice. ZeaKal's HME technology has shown crop yield and oil content increases of up to 50% and 34%, respectively.

"ZeaKal is very fortunate to have the backing of such a solid investment consortium," says Han Chen, CEO of ZeaKal. "We now have both a strong financial syndicate led by Finistere Ventures and through the MSMC, a powerful development partner with an established distribution and customer base to accelerate our program faster than we had hoped with just the capital alone."

"The ZeaKal technology has proven to be extremely effective in increasing yields in other crops," says Dale Ludwig, CEO, MSMC, "Their technology can revolutionize the future of soybean yields and deserves the support of the investment community and industry."

ZeaKal will be conducting the development in partnership with the University of Missouri at the laboratories of Dr. Henry Nguyen and Dr. Zhanyuan Zhang.

ZeaKal (www.zeakal.com):

ZeaKal is a plant science company developed from the incubation pipeline of Kapyon Ventures. The company's HME technology has been shown to vastly increase the yield and oil content of multiple crops - meaningfully impacting the demand for biomass across food, feed and fuels.

Finistere Ventures (www.finistere.com):

Finistere Ventures is a leading Life Sciences Venture Fund based in San Diego.

Two Oceans:

Two Oceans is a Family Office based in Sydney, Australia.

MSMC (www.mosoy.org):

The Missouri Soybean Merchandising Council (MSMC) is a farmer-run organization dedicated to improving the profitability of the Missouri soybean farmer through a combination of marketing, research and commercialization programs.

Kapyon Ventures (www.kapyon.com):

Kapyon Ventures, LLC is a San Diego based incubation firm focused on the development of technology startups from global research institutes. Kapyon's areas of focus include agricultural biotechnology, industrial biotechnology and cleantech. It works closely with U.S. and international research partners as managers for an investment portfolio of several biotechnology joint ventures.