DSM Venturing, the corporate venturing unit of Royal DSM N.V., has acquired an equity stake of 29.3% in Provexis plc, becoming the company’s largest shareholder.

Provexis develops and licenses ingredients for the functional food, medical food and dietary supplement markets. Its leading product is Fruitflow, a bioactive, patented extract from tomatoes that improves blood flow, which is important to maintaining a healthy heart and cardiovascular system. Krijn Rietveld, Senior Vice President New Business Development at DSM Nutritional Products, has been appointed non-executive director of the company.

The investment seems consistent with DSM’s strategy of focusing on cardiovascular and digestive health ingredients for the functional food and dietary supplement markets.

Provexis also has other products and technologies in development that are of strategic interest to DSM. “We are proud to be shareholder of Provexis. Their ingredients pipeline has valuable health benefits and attractive market potential in line with DSM’s ambition levels,” said Mr. Rietveld. “Their professional approach in attracting, developing and licensing interesting technologies is key to succeed in this competitive environment.”

Provexis plc’s CEO, Stephen Moon, said: “We welcome DSM as a strategic shareholder in our company while we continue to strengthen the technical capability of the business in line with our strategy. We expect DSM to become a valuable shareholder of our company, with their extensive knowledge of both products and the market.”

This investment brings the total number of current company participations of DSM Venturing to 20. Venturing forms an integral part of DSM’s open innovation approach, focused on teaming up with innovative players all over the world. The company has earmarked up to EUR 200 million for venturing investments until 2012.