THE WOODLANDS, TEXAS, U.S. — RiceBran Technologies on March 8 said it has completed a private placement of 3,046,668 shares of common stock and a pre-funded warrant exercisable into 1,003,344 shares of common stock. The private placement is valued at approximately $12.14 million and was completed with strategic and institutional investors that included Continental Grain Co., DG Capital Management and Dillon Hill Capital.

RiceBran said it plans to use proceeds from the offering for several strategic initiatives.

“The completion of this financing is an important inflection point in positioning our company for future growth in order to build significant shareholder value,” said Brent R. Rystrom, chief executive officer of RiceBran. “This financing, along with the existing cash on our balance sheet, enables us to commence execution of our strategic plan by expanding the rice milling capacity and building a state-of-the-art bran production facility at our Golden Ridge (Wynne, Arkansas, U.S.) plant, which will provide us the capability of using new technology and processes to manufacture our next generation of SRB (stabilized rice bran) products for large market opportunities that we have identified. The financing also positions us to pursue a strategic tuck-in acquisition opportunity that we are currently evaluating.  We believe our products are perfectly positioned to meet growing consumer demand for foods that are healthy, natural, and non-GMO, and we look forward to using this capital to deliver positive returns for our shareholders in 2019 and beyond.”

Ari Gendason, chief investment officer at Continental Grain, said the company has been pleased with RiceBran’s progress and is “excited for the opportunity to invest an additional $5 million to help finance strategic initiatives.”

One of the oldest food and agribusiness companies in the world, Continental Grain made its initial investment in RiceBran Technologies with the purchase of 2.7 million shares of common stock valued at $2.9 million in September 2017. The company has continued to increase its stake in RiceBran in recent years and now owns more than 4.2 million shares valued at more than $10.5 million.