#7.

IPO market re-opened, sort of, as Calyxt raises $56M in NASDAQ offering. Calyxt, the gene editing agriculture company, raised $56M and priced its NASDAQ initial public offering of 7 million shares at $8.00 in July. The company’s stock has subsequently rocketed to $25.00.

The number of shares in the offering was sweetened to 7 million in the last week, from the original estimate of 6.06 million — and the price was substantially lower than the expected $15.00-$18.00 range, with final proceeds some $50M less than the high end of the projected range disclosed last week by the company. However, markets were enthusiastic in initial trading, pushing the company’s shares as high as $11.42 in intra-day trading before closing at $11.25, up 40% over the IPO price.

The company’s secret sauce? It’s ability to asses a trait in less than two years and commercialize it in as short as six years with a significantly reduced development cost. At its heart, it’s a company about transformation in basic food feedstocks. But where the technological imperative for years has been about, to use an example, more corn and cheaper corn — with the resulting focus on rate and yield — Calyxt is overtly focused on performance. On better food. Dialed in at the gene level, through gene editing.