It’s likely that around 10m tonnes of plastic currently ends up in the oceans each year. In 2010 scientists from the National Centre for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and the University of Georgia in Athens estimated the figure as 8m tonnes and forecast that to rise to 9.1m tonnes by 2015. The same study, published in the journal Science in 2015, surveyed 192 coastal countries contributing to ocean plastic waste, and found that Asian nations were 13 of the 20 biggest contributors.

Teysha Technologies AggiePol® is a product constructed entirely of natural, raw materials such as sugars and starches, extracted from agricultural & food waste deposits. By simply adjusting the natural formulas of AggiePol®, we can determine the end of life cycle for hundreds of different products at each product's inception, meaning that every end product made with AggiePol® will biodegrade back to its wholly natural constituent building blocks and ultimately support the ecosystem, not destroy it.

Our technology has the potential to match current market-leading biopolymers in terms of being 100% organic material, and many possible applications. Indeed AggiePol® has the potential to better PLA’s environmental credentials as it is waste-derived, fully biodegradable, and highly tuneable for a wide variety of end uses. The market-leading biopolymer is PLA which is a $5.2 billion annually in sales market.

One significant strength of the technology is its inherent versatility as it is truly more of a platform than a single polymer system. It can be thought of as a “plug-and-play” system where various modified natural product monomers and various thiol co-monomers can be used. In addition to the co-monomers, various solvents and additives can be used to modify the properties of the final polymer network. This allows for the formation of a variety of final products that can vary from hard and stiff materials to soft, which can be directly applied to current plant machinery with low capital cost.

With principle research and development successfully completed and core patents filed and granted, the core focus of the company is on rapid commercialisation via three potential revenue streams. Sublicensing of our IP to other producers, supply AggiePol® as a raw material and ultimately manufacture AggiePol® into end-use products.

Bioplastics are plastics derived from renewable feedstocks such as corn, sugarcane, and cellulose. Factors such as eco-friendly properties, availability of renewable feedstocks, and favourable government policies enable manufacturers to adopt bio-based plastics. Increase in adoption of biodegradable products and improvement in scope of bioplastics across end-user industries drive the growth of the bioplastics market. The market is classified into rigid packaging, flexible packaging, textile, agriculture & horticulture, consumer goods, automotive, electronic, building & construction, and others Based on region, the market is analysed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA.

The European bioplastics market generated the highest revenue in 2017. Favourable policies for bioplastics manufacturers by the European policy makers and increase in adoption of bioplastics in Germany, Italy, and the UK are the key factors that drive the growth of the bioplastics market in the region. However, Asia-Pacific is projected to be the fastest growing market in terms of revenue and consumption, registering a CAGR of 20.4% from 2018 to 2024.

The global plastics market is expected to reach $654.38 Billion by 2020, according to a new study by Grand View Research Inc. Growth of major end-use use industries such as packaging, construction and automotive, particularly in emerging markets of China, India, and Brazil, is expected to remain a key driving factor for global plastic demand.

BCC Research showed that the bioplastics market will continue to have fast growth in the next five years. Asia and South America will account for around 90% of bioplastics production capacity by 2020, up from 70% in 2014. BCC Research forecasted a compound annual growth rate for bioplastics of 30% and bioplastics production could grow by 271% from 2015 through 2020. The development of bioplastics is increasing worldwide due to concerns about climate change.

The adoption of bioplastics in rigid packaging was the highest in 2017 and is expected to continue this trend through to 2024. Bioplastics possess properties such as gloss, barrier effect, antistatic behaviour, and printability, which make it suitable for rigid packaging application. Bioplastic rigid packaging includes bottles, cups, cans, corrugated cases, boxes, and others.

The primary focus and use of funds moving forward for Teysha’s management team now Intellectual Property and principle research and development has successfully completed is to rapidly develop our commercial pipeline. We will however also continue to develop the product and secure additional intellectual property. This phase of work will support commercialisation activities, extend the technology platform creating additional value.

A combination of internal R&D and outsourcing is proposed as the most effective strategy for implementing the work program. Our proposed approach is as follows:

1. Development of prototypes in conjunction with strategic [partners and potential customers
2. Scale-up and pilot plant work
3. Supply of polymers and monomers to selected partners for performance evaluation.
4. Investigation of natural microbeads and film formation.
5. Investigation novel formulations with functional additives such as natural colours and antioxidants.
6. Conducting biodegradation studies in anaerobic and aerobic environments to assist life cycle analysis.
7. Exploring the potential to apply the Teysha technology to lignocellulosic sugar mixtures.
8. Exploring the potential to create additional revenues through new applications of glucose allyl carbonate in slow-release drugs, flavours and fragrances.

The directors of Teysha Technologies Limited are heavily engaged in the formulation of an exit strategy. It is Teysha’s management’s opinion that the UK public markets and AIM are conducive to listing in this energy and technology space. The directors are also considering a variety of financial options, further product development and aggressive transition to international markets. These options should provide very attractive exits for our equity shareholders. Teysha management considers this investment opportunity offers good potential prospects for return. When assuming an IRR of 35% and an exit in 5 years, this implies an EV/EBITDA multiple of 2.25x, whilst the average EV/EBITDA multiple of IPO peer groups in the sector stands at 11.62x.

The Mergers and Acquisitions market within the sector has been very active in the last few years, with numerous large transactions displaying a healthy appetite for biotechnology. Please refer to the Investment Memorandum for a small number of samples that we have provided.

We have two exit scenarios for the investor, scenario one being through Merger and Acquisition and scenario two being exit through IPO.