Counting Antofénol's EIC Accelerator Results on a Vine Fungicide

Every winter, vineyards cut away their old canes and burn or mulch them. Antofénol, a French company founded by Fanny Rolet in 2014, extracts polyphenols from that wood with microwaves and sells the idea of a natural fungicide called Antoferine. The European Commission picked the company in the October 2019 cut-off of the EIC Accelerator pilot for blended finance, a grant plus EIC equity. The list names Antofénol alone, with no partner companies, and still gives Montpellier as its home, although the company had moved its registered office to Plestan in Brittany in February 2019, according to the official BODACC notices.

The grant was €2,060,633.75 towards a project costing €2,943,762.50, from 1 March 2020 to 30 November 2022, according to CORDIS. The goals were to scale up extraction, finish a sellable formulation and ask for EU approval of the active ingredient. Six years after the selection, the first and third steps are done. Antoferine still cannot be sold as a plant protection product in the EU.

Where Antofénol Stands in 2026

The company is active. The French register lists it as operating, with its head office at 41 allée de Gromelle in Vedène since 16 December 2025 and its two Plestan sites closed, according to Annuaire des Entreprises. The BODACC notices record capital increases in June and August 2026, which took the nominal share capital from €111,120 to €144,500, and the filing of the 2025 accounts on 31 August 2026.

On 19 March 2026 Antofénol announced a partnership with Gowan, a crop protection company, to market Antoferine in orchards and vineyards, according to the company. The trade site Agro Matin reported the deal on 16 March 2026, with apple scab and grapevine black rot as first targets, and quoted Rolet as reporting "50 to 80%" efficacy depending on the pathogen and disease pressure. Neither source gives financial terms.

The revenue Antofénol does earn today cannot come from Antoferine as a crop protection product, because it is not authorised. The company's website now presents it as a microwave extraction company serving three markets, agriculture, cosmetics and food, with ingredient lines called WaveXtracts and FlavWaves and organic and COSMOS certificates for 2026 to 2028, according to antofenol.com. How much of its revenue comes from each market is not public.

The Technology: Microwaves Instead of Solvents

Antofénol heats chopped vine wood with microwaves under vacuum while stirring it, which breaks the plant cells open and releases the polyphenols without chemical solvents, according to the company's technology page. It lists a 32-litre laboratory extractor and two industrial extractors of 450 and 1,050 litres driven by a 75 kW microwave generator. The company says the process is patented.

The extract is meant to replace synthetic fungicides and, in organic farming, copper. The CORDIS summary says it was tested on avocado, apple, banana, citrus, mango, peach, strawberry, tomato and potato. The company says more than 300 field trials have been run since 2018. Those trials are the company's own figures; the EU risk assessment, not yet finished, is the independent test. Natural alternatives already exist: in January 2025 the Commission approved grape seed extract as a basic substance against fungi on vines, apples, potatoes and lettuce, while an earlier application for vine cane tannins as a basic substance was rejected in 2020. Antofénol chose the longer route of a full active substance approval.

What ANTOFERINE Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The proposal described a product at technology readiness level 8 and asked for "a blended finance package of €3.56m (€2.06m grant/ €1.5m equity)". It projected "a turnover of €26.7m and an Ebitda of €12.9m by 2025", 25 new direct jobs, and savings of 11,000 tonnes of pesticides in the EU. It planned the work over 24 months; the project ran for 33.

The company's final periodic report says the pilot production line was "functional" at the end of the programme and that two work packages were delayed. The formulation was not finished: "we changed the positioning of our product", the report says, and internal trials were continuing to find a formula that met its specifications. The EU approval dossier was submitted in March 2022, with a US filing planned for early 2023. A building permit for an industrial plant was filed in September 2022, with delivery projected for April 2024. Engagement letters and order agreements had been signed with distributors for the day the product could be sold.

1. Scale up the extraction processDeliveredPilot line "functional" at project end, per CORDIS; industrial extractors listed on the company website.
2. Marketable Antoferine formulationPartialProduct repositioned; formulation trials still running at project end.
3. Request EU approval of the active ingredientDeliveredDossier filed in March 2022; draft assessment report submitted by Malta in summer 2025.
4. US registration filing in early 2023Not verifiedNo public record of a US filing was found.
5. Industrial plant by April 2024Not achievedNo plant opening announced by October 2026; a Vedène site was due to start in 2026.
6. €26.7M turnover and 25 new jobs by 2025Not achieved€567k revenue in 2024; 10 to 19 staff.

The grant paid for what grants usually pay for: process scale-up and a regulatory file. It did not bring the product to market, because that depends on an EU decision that lies outside the project's timeline. The commercial forecast in the proposal assumed a market launch that has not happened.

Did the EIC Equity Arrive?

Yes. Antofénol is listed in the EIC Fund portfolio. The law firm Linklaters advised the EIC Fund on a €6.3 million Series A in Antofénol alongside Banque des Territoires, ERPIM and EIT Food, according to Le Monde du Droit on 2 June 2021. The register shows the matching capital increase, to €92,350 nominal, in July 2021.

The size of the EIC stake depends on the source. The proposal asked for €1.5 million of equity. Le Journal des Entreprises reported in May 2021 that the EIC Fund put in €2.5 million for 12% of the capital, at a valuation of nearly €20 million. The company's own investor page puts the round at €7.3 million, not €6.3 million. Neither the EIC nor the company has published the final EIC amount.

The Accounts and the Factory

Antofénol published a small profit of €95,025 in 2020, the first year of the EIC project, on revenue of €243,779. It has lost money every year since: €852,335 in 2021, €633,827 in 2022, €971,402 in 2023 and €931,483 in 2024, on revenue that reached €566,788 in 2024, according to filed accounts in the French INPI financial ratios dataset. Equity and debt figures are not in that dataset.

The factory is the clearest gap between plan and record. In February 2022 the State granted €6.8 million under France Relance for a site in the Saint-Joseph business park at Le Thor, part of a €42 million investment meant to produce more than 600 tonnes of Antoferine a year from 2024 and employ 120 people at full capacity, according to the Pays des Sorgues community of municipalities. In December 2022 the company pushed the first works to the second quarter of 2024 and delivery to the first quarter of 2025. In January 2026 it told Forces Françaises de l'Industrie of two sites, at Vedène for cosmetics and food and at Le Thor for agriculture, due in May 2026. In March 2026 Agro Matin mentioned only a new plant at Vedène entering service in 2026. No Le Thor establishment appears in the register, and no opening of either site had been announced by October 2026.

The Approval Clock

Antoferine is going through the full EU procedure for a new active substance under Regulation 1107/2009. Malta, as rapporteur member state, finished its draft assessment report in summer 2025, according to Antofénol, which expects the EU peer review in 2026. Agro Matin reported an expected EFSA conclusion by the end of 2027 and a product authorisation around 2028. The French apple and pear association ANPP is backing a request for a temporary derogation for post-harvest use on apples, which could allow earlier sales; no decision on it has been published. The company's biocontrol page still says sales will start "from 2026".

Why Europe Should Care

The EU's Farm to Fork strategy set a target of halving the use and risk of chemical pesticides by 2030. The law meant to enforce it, the Sustainable Use Regulation, was rejected by the European Parliament in November 2023 and withdrawn by the Commission in February 2024, according to AGRINFO and EuChemS. That leaves farmers to cut chemical fungicides only as substitutes become available. Natural, low-risk products such as Antoferine are the kind of substitute the policy needs, and the vine canes come from European vineyards rather than imported supply chains.

Antofénol's case also shows a structural problem. A biocontrol product needs an EU approval process that takes years, longer than an EIC project and longer than the revenue forecasts written into the proposal. The EIC funded the dossier; it could not speed up the decision.

The Verdict

Antofénol has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.