I had similar thoughts. This reeks of desperation, or the belief...

I had similar thoughts. This reeks of desperation, or the belief they will fail. If they were expecting to kick some goals or do anything impressive in the near future they'd wait until the market was impressed, then do the capital raising.

Having said that, the board is very clever and no doubt has a plan. I expect there will be some announcement, some report or something with something like 'we have found a way to reduce watering costs by 80% compared to other alternatives' etc etc, or there will be some vague deal with no specifics given but the board "will be full of excitement about the extremely lucrative prospects generating significant revenue within a short timeframe" or some such familiar hype, and, I'll give it to them, they're good at convincing their target audience.