Kingston, Ontario
September 18, 2003

Performance Plants Inc., a Canadian agricultural biotechnology company, has announced the completion of $1.45 million in financing to advance the company’s technologies for improved performance in crop plants.

The funding, from the VentureLink Brighter Future (Equity) Fund Inc. and VentureLink Fund Inc., supports Performance Plants through its next round of field trials for its yield stabilizing drought-tolerance trait. The deal builds on a previous investment of $1.4 million, made by VentureLink in June 2002.

Results from the company’s second season of field trials, conducted this past summer in Western Canada, will be available in November. Field trials allow researchers to test their plant growth technologies under actual farming conditions. Performance Plants’ successful high-yielding drought-tolerant technology is available for commercial development in many crop species.

“This funding takes us through the next calendar year and allows us to establish commercial partnerships to produce enhanced corn, soybean, canola and cotton varieties,” says David Dennis, President & CEO of Performance Plants. “It propels us into a very exciting phase of our development.”

“It is encouraging to see the confidence existing investors have in this very exciting company,” says John Molloy, President and CEO of PARTEQ Innovations, the technology-transfer arm of Queen’s University.

Performance Plants is Canada’s leading agricultural biotechnology company focused on the modification of plant metabolism to produce new and improved plant varieties. Its technologies are based on genetic enhancements that will allow crop species to maintain high yields under adverse environmental conditions.

Founded in 1995 with the assistance of PARTEQ Innovations of Queen's University, Performance Plants has already established several commercial alliances. The Company has offices in Kingston, ON and Saskatoon, SK and employs 30 people.