Evogene in the first quarter: financing bought time, revenue still has to arrive
Evogene opened 2026 with more ChemPass AI collaborations and a cash position that looks stable after a warrant exercise, but revenue fell to $0.3 million and the quarter still does not prove a move into commercial revenue. The near-term read depends mainly on whether the Lavie Bio and Biomica distributions arrive on time and buy more quarters without another dilutive financing event.
Evogene's first quarter reinforces a simple conclusion: the company bought itself time, but it has not yet bought business proof. Consolidated cash and short-term bank deposits stood at about $13.1 million at the end of March, almost unchanged from the end of 2025, because the February warrant exercise covered the quarter's cash burn. Under that stable cash line sits a company whose revenue fell to only $334 thousand, mainly because the Casterra seed sales recorded in the comparable quarter did not repeat. The net loss widened to $5.9 million, but much of that came from warrant accounting rather than a clean operating deterioration. The real gap is between a growing set of research collaborations and commercial revenue that still does not show up in the financial statements. That makes 2026 a proof year: cash from Lavie Bio and Biomica needs to arrive, ChemPass AI needs to convert at least some collaborations into payments, and AgPlenus and Casterra need to show that the remaining activity is more than a future story.
The business changed faster than revenue
Evogene is no longer a broad portfolio of biotech and ag-tech subsidiaries trying to advance several tracks at once. After the Lavie Bio sale, the BMC128 licensing path at Biomica, and the sharp reduction at Casterra, the listed company is now mainly built around ChemPass AI: a small-molecule design engine aimed at pharma and ag-chemistry. This is not an earnings machine yet. It is a time-and-financing machine: each quarter has to show that the technology is getting closer to revenue before cash, dilution, or market patience runs out.
The previous annual Deep TASE coverage of Evogene framed the same transition: ChemPass AI was becoming the focus, but cash and dilution still drove the thesis. The first quarter did not change that frame. It sharpened it. The number of publicly disclosed pharma collaborations rose to four after the additions of Systasy Bioscience with LMU, Queensland University of Technology, and Unravel Biosciences. Google Cloud entered a second collaboration around advanced AI agents for ChemPass AI. These are important signs of technology validation, but they are still not commercial contracts that generate meaningful revenue for the parent company.
The activity map is shorter now, but not simpler. In pharma, ChemPass AI gained three new collaborations and expanded work with Google Cloud, but without disclosed payment terms. In ag-chemistry, AgPlenus continues with Corteva and advances its internal Wheat Blotch fungicide program, while the Bayer project was discontinued. At Casterra, the activity was narrowed to Brazil and field trials are meant to support seed sales in the 2027 growing season. At Lavie Bio and Biomica, the value question is now less scientific and more cash-based: money needs to move up to the parent company.
That is why the quarter looks better in the narrative than in revenue. Evogene can show more activity around ChemPass AI, but the financial statements still ask a simpler question: have these collaborations started to pay, or are they only moving scientific assets to the next stage?
Cost cutting is working, but it is not selling a product
Revenue fell 85.7% to $334 thousand, compared with $2.34 million in the same quarter last year. The main reason is the absence of Casterra sales that existed a year earlier, when the quarter included approximately $2.0 million of seed sales. This matters because it separates two stories: 2025 revenue was not a new run-rate base, and the current quarter still has not shown ChemPass AI replacing it.
The company is shrinking the cost base. R&D expenses fell 25.6% to $1.84 million, mainly because of lower expenses at Biomica, Casterra, and AgPlenus. Total net operating expenses fell 13.0% to $3.35 million. Even so, operating loss increased slightly to $3.15 million, because the revenue decline offset most of the savings. Cost cutting helps keep the company alive, but by itself it does not create a business turn.
The $5.9 million net loss looks worse than the underlying activity. Net finance income of $1.1 million in the comparable quarter became a net finance expense of $2.7 million, mostly because of the accounting treatment of warrants and pre-funded warrants. The February transaction created about $3.8 million of finance expenses, partly offset by about $0.9 million of finance income from remeasuring the warrant liability at the end of March. So the headline of an almost doubled net loss misses the finer point: the quarter did not show a new operating collapse. It showed a leaner company, missing revenue, and a financing layer that weighs heavily on the reported bottom line.
Cash barely fell because financing covered the burn
The all-in cash picture is better than the quarter's expenses would have produced on their own. At the end of March, the company held $8.51 million in cash and $4.54 million in short-term bank deposits, versus $12.96 million of cash and no short-term deposits at the end of 2025. Cash and deposits together therefore stood at about $13.05 million, up 0.8%. But this was not a cash-generating business result. Net cash used in operating activities was $2.95 million, even though that was better than $5.18 million in the comparable quarter.
The right frame here is all-in cash flexibility. In the first quarter, operating cash burn was covered mainly by financing: the warrant exercise brought in $3.21 million net, while the company also repaid $121 thousand of lease liabilities and received $101 thousand of government grants. The cash position looks stable, but shareholders paid for it through another dilution layer. Issued shares rose to 10.41 million at the end of March, from 6.67 million at the end of 2025, a 56.1% increase. Above that sits a new layer of 5.08 million warrants exercisable at $1.25 per share, equal to another 48.8% potential dilution relative to the share count at quarter end.
| Cash source or use | What happened in the quarter | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Operating activity | $2.95 million of cash used | Cash burn improved, but the business still consumes cash |
| Warrant exercise | $3.21 million net entered the company | Financing bought time at a dilution cost that is already visible in the share count |
| Cash and deposits | About $13.05 million at the end of March | The cash position barely fell, mainly because of financing rather than revenue |
| New warrants | 5.08 million potential shares at a $1.25 exercise price | If the stock price allows exercise, the company gets more cash but shareholders are diluted again |
The subsidiary distributions are the more important non-dilutive cash source for the near term. Lavie Bio received court approval for a $4.25 million distribution, of which Evogene is entitled to about $2.9 million. Biomica received approval in April for a $2.7 million distribution, of which the company is entitled to about $1.35 million. In both cases, completion is expected in the second quarter. Timing still matters: the cash flow statement includes $1.13 million of a dividend declared by a subsidiary but not yet paid. The money is on the way, but not all of it has already turned into parent-level cash.
2026 is a proof year, not a breakout year
Evogene's management frames 2026 as an execution year: expanding technology collaborations, advancing the pharma and ag-chemistry pipelines, and deepening relationships with leading players. The market read over the next few quarters will depend less on the number of collaborations and more on their economics. For ChemPass AI, the proof point is payment. At AgPlenus, the Bayer termination reminds investors that even a large partner does not guarantee a product path. At Casterra, the pivot to Brazil creates a monitoring point for the 2027 growing season, but it also means 2026 seed revenue is likely to remain limited.
Three near-term triggers matter: actual receipt of the Lavie Bio and Biomica distributions, a ChemPass AI collaboration with visible economics, or an update showing that Casterra or AgPlenus is moving toward revenue rather than another trial stage. If cash starts falling before one of those sources arrives, the AI story will quickly return to the old question of financing and dilution. The new warrants sharpen that point: they can become another funding source, but only at a stock price that allows exercise, and at that point they also expand the share base.
Evogene exits the first quarter with more time and more signs of technological activity, but not with proof that the business model has already changed. The current read is more successful financially than commercially. The next few quarters need to show that the time bought in February is not consumed only by more research, but leads to commercial payments, actual subsidiary distributions, or milestones that can extend the runway without another equity event. Until then, the first quarter says something simpler: the company got more time, but the revenue test is still ahead.
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