^{Original Video Source: Investing News Network}

Bee Vectoring Technologies Eyes the European Union

^{Interview With: Georgia William}

At the recently-held Cantech Investment Conference, Ashish Malik, CEO of Bee Vectoring Technologies (TSXV:BEE), spoke to the Investing News Network about the company’s expansion to Europe and its additional plans for 2019.

Malik said people in Europe are looking to “drive change” in agricultural practices, making it an attractive market for Bee.

While the company submitted its solutions for regulatory approvals in Switzerland in 2018, Malik said that it has “plans” for launching its products in the European Union (EU).

“We actually haven’t submitted for [regulatory approvals] as of yet because it is a big investment, so we want to do it at the right time,” he said. “We expect late 2019 [or] early 2020 to initiate the EU process.”

In late January, Bee announced the invoicing of its bee-based crop enhancement technology which Malik said is a “super exciting milestone” for the company.

“It’s a huge milestone for us, and it’s just a beginning,” he said. “It’s a pilot revenue [and] it’s a fairly limited launch, but bigger and better things are to come for us.”

Malik also reflected on the company’s presentation at the conference in which it revealed the testing of a honey bee solution in the fields of Georgia.

“Most of the work that we have done until now is been focused on bumble bees. Bumble bees are great, they’re great pollinators but they’re also not widely used in many outdoor crops,” he said. “So we now built similar dispensing technologies that would work with honey bee hives.”

According to Malik, the new solution will open up more opportunities for Bee that wouldn’t have been possible with the bumble bee system.

“We’re now going to be testing our prototypes of the honeybee system in 2019, moving toward hopeful commercial introduction of a honey bee dispenser probably in 2020,” he said.

Malik said a big focus of Bee in 2019 will be the “successful commercialization” of its solutions in the US. Additionally, the company is hoping to work on its market expansion projects, which includes initiating development efforts in Mexico.