CropEn­er­gies acquires stake in biotech star­tup LXP

CropEn­er­gies AG, acquired a stake in LXP Group GmbH at the end of May 2022. CropEn­er­gies, a mem­ber of the Südzuck­er Group, secured nearly 20 per­cent of the Branden­burg-based biotech star­tup for about EUR 2 mil­lion as part of a cap­it­al increase.

LXP Group GmbH has developed a pat­en­ted, energy-effi­cient pro­cess that enables mild diges­tion of ligno­cel­lu­lar bio­mass, espe­cially resid­ual and waste mater­i­als such as cut­tings, as well as wood residues such as saw­dust, or straw. Advanced bio­fuels and biobased chem­ic­als can then be pro­duced from the cel­lu­lose and hemi­cel­lu­lose con­tained. In addi­tion, the LXP pro­cess pro­duces a high-pur­ity, nat­ur­al lignin that can be used to man­u­fac­ture numer­ous products such as 3D print­er ink, car­bon fibers or phen­olic res­ins.

For CropEn­er­gies, the invest­ment in LXP is a fur­ther step in imple­ment­ing the com­pany’s stra­tegic realign­ment launched in 2021. Up to now, CropEn­er­gies has primar­ily pro­duced renew­able eth­an­ol from agri­cul­tur­al raw mater­i­als as a cli­mate-friendly, domest­ic fuel sub­sti­tute, as well as food and anim­al feed products. For some years now, eth­an­ol has also been pro­duced from resid­ual mater­i­als. This branch of the busi­ness is to be fur­ther expan­ded. Dr. Stephan Meed­er, CEO of CropEn­er­gies AG: ​“The invest­ment in LXP with a pat­en­ted, state-of-the-art pro­cess opens up fur­ther oppor­tun­it­ies for CropEn­er­gies to expand its raw mater­i­al base for the pro­duc­tion of 2^nd gen­er­a­tion bio­fuels.” Of par­tic­u­lar interest to CropEn­er­gies is that the LXP tech­no­logy can also be integ­rated into exist­ing biore­finer­ies for the pro­duc­tion of renew­able eth­an­ol. ​“The pro­duc­tion of 1^st and 2^nd gen­er­a­tion bio­fuels are not con­tra­dict­ory. On the con­trary, they go hand in hand. The new tech­no­lo­gies bene­fit from the exist­ing infra­struc­ture of pro­duc­tion plants and expert­ise,” Meed­er added. The invest­ment also opens up new oppor­tun­it­ies for the new biobased chem­ic­als divi­sion planned at CropEn­er­gies. In Janu­ary 2022, CropEn­er­gies had repor­ted plans to build a plant for renew­able ethyl acet­ate.

​“In 2022/2023, LXP Group GmbH plans to build a pilot plant using 15,000 tons of bio­mass and start pro­du­cing cel­lu­lose and high-pur­ity lignin. The stra­tegic rein­force­ment by CropEn­er­gies enables us to expand our tech­no­logy much faster,” said Dr. Volk­er Bauer, Man­aging Dir­ect­or of LXP Group GmbH.

​“We are very pleased to gain CropEn­er­gies, a highly exper­i­enced mar­ket play­er, as a co-investor in order to now trans­fer the pro­cess developed by LXP into con­crete indus­tri­al plants and thus come one step closer to our goal of eco­nom­ic­al and sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion of raw mater­i­als for the man­u­fac­ture of bio­fuels and bio­chem­ic­als,” com­men­ted Jür­gen Kosch, CEO of MIG Cap­it­al AG.

LXP Group GmbH is ven­ture cap­it­al fin­anced. In addi­tion to CropEn­er­gies, investors cur­rently include sev­er­al funds of MIG Cap­it­al AG in Munich as well as the KfW bank­ing group and sev­er­al busi­ness angels.