Vytrus Biotech just raised €1.7M in funding on Sociosinversores.com, the Spanish crowdfunding platform. Specialised in active ingredients for the cosmetic and dermatological industry, the biotech firm will use this injection of funding to improve its production capacity and boost sales and marketing areas. With headquarters in Terrassa (Barcelona, Spain), the company aims to reach €5.6M turnover by 2024.
The firm finished last financial year with €1.22M sales – from which 70% belongs to worldwide incomes. Albert Jané, co-founder and CEO of Vytrus, said: “Our company has consolidated its position within its markets and currently we work with high level clients; this fact will allow us to grow exponentially in the coming years”.
Vytrus’s last investment round has been boosted by the lead investors ICF Venture Tech II (Catalan Institute of Finance’s investment fund) with a €500k loan and the Andorran Perfumeria Júlia with a €470k investment. The other €730k investment comes from small investors.
Since its foundation, the company has raised €3.5M. The founding team, together with surrounding investors, keeps most of shareholders’ capital. Among its shareholders, there is also the Catalan company Inkemia. In the medium term, Vytrus may plan to go public to strengthen its growth plans. “This year, Vytrus will go from being a limited company to a corporation, an essential requirement to enter the stock market. MAB and the Euronext Growth would be the options to be considered”, Albert said.
For the next year, Vytrus has forecasts of invoicing €1.5M. Although the company has a broad portfolio of ingredients, Albert points to two products as the main engines of the business. The first one is Olea Vitae which won the award for being the most innovative ingredient worldwide at In-cosmetics Global 2019. It consists of an active made from olive stem cells that works as anti-aging and skin repair. The other product is Sarcoslim Re-shape, also from plant stem cells which also won the Green Ingredient award at In-cosmetics global 2019 as the most sustainable ingredient in the world.
The most recent event at Vytrus’s sphere is its obtention of two important certificates. The first one is the Good Manufacturing Practices for Cosmetics Ingredients (GMP) certificate and so becoming the first Spanish biotech SME to obtain this recognition. This certificate accredits companies for a good management of the key guidelines to be used in the pharmaceutical industry and guarantees the quality and safety in the production of cosmetic ingredients. Vytrus enters the top 9 Spanish companies certified such as BASF Spain, Comercial Química Massó, Croda Spain, among others.
In addition, Vytrus Biotech also announced the obtaining of the ISO 9001:2015 certification for a good management system for product quality, service and production processes, being a clear signal that the company places the constant improvement at its core priorities.
