Balaton, Minnesota, U.S.A.-based Trū Shrimp Company announced on Wednesday, 2 February the launch of an initial public offering.
Trū Shrimp has filed its intention with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to list its common stock on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the ticker symbol “BTRU.” The company is offering 1.5 million shares of common stock at a price range of between USD 9.00 and USD 11.00 (EUR 7.96 and EUR 9.72). It also said it expects to grant the underwriters of the IPO a 45-day option to purchase an additional 225,000 shares of its common stock at the IPO price. The company did not publicize a timeline for the offering.
"We've been at this now over six years, and we firmly believe the research is done and we're ready to commercialize," Trū Shrimp CEO Michael Ziebell told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "We have customers for our products. This is the next step going forward."
Trū Shrimp was created as a division of agriculture firm Ralco Nutrition in 2014 but was spun off in 2017. In 2018, it announced plans to build a USD 50 million (EUR 45 million) 67-acre commercial shrimp farm and hatchery in Luverne, Minnesota, but it changed course in 2019 and instead said it would construct its first production facility in Madison, South Dakota. The company has yet to break ground on the facility as it has yet to raise the USD 90 million in estimated construction costs. In 2015, Trū Shrimp Company signed an agreement giving it exclusive global rights to commercialize tidal-basin technology – also known as super-intensive raceway – and it expects to use that technology at its farm.
The company’s IPO prospectus said Tru Shrimp has thus far received USD 70 million (EUR 61.9 million) in investments to-date but has incurred "significant net losses and negative cash flows.” According to the Star Tribune, the company shuttered operations during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, furloughing employees from May 2020 through July 2021. Ziebell said the pandemic made it difficult to raise capital as "people were not able to come to Balaton to visit and see our technology."
The company has since reopened its pilot plant in Minnesota, which is capable of producing up to 45,000 pounds of unprocessed shrimp annually.
According to its SEC filing, once operational, Tru Shrimp expects to grow 1.3 million pounds of head-on, shell-on shrimp annually, or around 790,000 pounds of processed shrimp, which it said will bring the company USD 12 million (EUR 10.6 million) annually.
It also plans to market chitosan derived from the exoskeleton of its farmed shrimp, which will be used for biomedical, pharmaceutical, dermatology, and high-end consumer cosmetic markets, which it estimates will bring in USD 21 million (EUR 18.6 million) per year, the company said in its filing.
The sale of shrimp heads and other protein-rich byproducts will be sold to the pet food market for earnings of around USD 3 million (EUR 2.7 million) per year, Trū Shrimp said.
In January 2021, Trū Shrimp signed a strategic distribution partnership with Gordon Food Service for national distribution of its shrimp. Ziebell told the Star Tribune his company is working to find a local distributor in Minnesota.
Ralco Nutrition owners Jon and Brian Knochenmus, will continue to control a majority of the voting power of shares eligible to vote in the election of our directors following Tru Shrimp's listing, according to the prospectus, while Marshall, Minnesota-based Schwan's Co. will continue to own a 9 percent stake in the company.
Photo courtesy of Trū Shrimp
