Up 131% this year! Should I add this rocketing 9p penny stock to my ISA?
I wrote about Agronomics (LSE: ANIC) just 10 days ago, when it was priced at 7p. Since then, the penny stock has jumped 24% to 9p. This means it has surged 131% since the beginning of 2025! The question now is, should I add this high-flyer to my Stocks and Shares ISA?
Let’s take a closer look at Agronomics to find out.
What does it do?
The company invests in start-ups in the emerging field of cellular agriculture. That’s jargon for lab-grown meat made by cultivating animal cells, rather than rearing animals. Agronomics prefers the term ‘clean food’.
These technologies…[offer] solutions to improve sustainability, as well as addressing human health, animal welfare and environmental damage. This disruption will decouple supply chains from the environment and animals and improve food security for the world’s expanding population.
Agronomics.
The firm has now backed over 20 of these start-ups globally, spanning lab-grown chicken, pork, fish, leather, and pet food.
Below are the top 10 holdings and what they do.
| Company | Weighting | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Liberation Labs | 22.9% | Contract manufacturer for precision fermentation. |
| SuperMeat | 10.1% | Cultivated chicken. |
| BlueNalu | 8.6% | Cultivated seafood. |
| Meatable | 7.9% | Cultivated pork. |
| Solar Foods | 7.4% | Uses air, electricity and fermentation to make proteins. |
| Onego Bio | 6.5% | Egg proteins via fermentation. |
| Formo | 6.3% | Animal-free dairy products. |
| All G Foods | 5.0% | Animal-free dairy products. |
| Clean Food Group | 4.8% | Sustainable palm oil alternatives. |
| EVERY | 4.3% | Egg proteins via fermentation. |
Industry progress
In its latest Q2 newsletter, Agronomics highlighted regulatory progress within the sector. Notably, the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) is looking at how it can streamline the approval process for cultivated food.
According to Agronomics, approval processes overseas take half the time on average compared to times for UK firms. But as a result of the FCA announcement, it says it has “seen multiple companies move towards the UK as a target jurisdiction for the commercialisation of cultivated meat.” So this is positive for the wider industry.
Elsewhere, there was portfolio progression with fresh funding rounds, product launches and regulatory approvals. Liberation Labs has raised $50.5m in a convertible note round to complete its first biomanufacturing plant in Richmond, Indiana.
Formo secured a €35m loan from the European Investment Bank, while holding Meatly became the world’s first company to supply cultivated meat for sold pet food (in Pets at Home).
Meanwhile, a US firm (not in the portfolio) has showcased the world’s first lab-grown whole cow’s milk, produced without a single cow. This sort of thing would have sounded like science fiction just a decade ago.
US regulation challenges
Fair to say then, there’s a lot of technological innovation going on in this industry right now. However, there are some obvious risks here.
Chief among these is the fact that these start-ups aren’t generating revenue. All will need further capital raises, and there’s no guarantee that commercial success will follow. Consumer adoption might be slower than hoped.
Also, US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr isn’t a fan of lab-grown meat (putting it mildly). Therefore, US regulatory approvals might prove harder to come by in the next few years.
My decision
I’ve previously owned shares of Agronomics, but I sold them a while back to de-risk my ISA portfolio. With stock markets at record highs, I’m not keen to back up the truck and load up again. But perhaps I’ll take a small nibble.
According to Agronomics’ calculations, the shares are trading at around a 40% discount to net asset value. So adventurous investors might also want to consider the stock at 9p.
Finally, despite its blistering performance, Agronomics remains 74% lower than a peak of 35p reached in May 2021. In theory then, it could still have much further left to climb.
The post Up 131% this year! Should I add this rocketing 9p penny stock to my ISA? appeared first on The Motley Fool UK.
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Ben McPoland has no position in any of the shares mentioned. The Motley Fool UK has recommended Pets At Home Group Plc. Views expressed on the companies mentioned in this article are those of the writer and therefore may differ from the official recommendations we make in our subscription services such as Share Advisor, Hidden Winners and Pro. Here at The Motley Fool we believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.
