Algae biofuel company Solazyme closes $57m venture financing round

8 June 2009

Algae-derived biofuels company Solazyme, Inc. has surpassed $76m in funding, including the company’s recently closed $57m Series C financing. Venture capital firms Braemar Energy Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners led the financing round and were joined by other new investors including VantagePoint Venture Partners. All major existing investors participated in the round, including The Roda Group, Harris and Harris Group, and Solazyme chairman Jerry Fiddler.

Solazyme uses microalgae biotechnology to produce clean and scalable fuels, green chemicals, edible oils and health and wellness products.

‘This most recent funding validates the unique value of our oil production platform and adds to our already strong financial position. Solazyme’s mission is to answer the increasing global demand for clean and renewable sources of oil. We offer sustainable and scalable technology that provides unique solutions for addressing four of the largest challenges facing our country and our planet: increasing energy demand, heightened energy security needs, energy related environmental degradation and hunger,’ said Jonathan Wolfson, CEO of Solazyme.

‘Braemar’s mission is to identify and support the most promising alternative energy firms with disruptive technologies that provide meaningful clean energy solutions,’ added William Lese of Braemer Energy Ventures. ‘Solazyme’s renewable oil and advanced biofuels technology is leading the industry on the path to commercialization and will be cleanly powering our vehicles with renewable fuels that fit within the existing infrastructure.’

Solazyme’s renewable oil production process grows algae in the dark in an industrial fermentation process, where the algae are fed non-food biomass and industrial byproducts including a wide variety of cellulosic materials and low-grade waste glycerol which are converted by the algae into oil. Solazyme is currently producing thousands of gallons of oil in commercial scale facilities and has produced in-specification fuels including renewable diesel, biodiesel and jet fuel.

‘Solazyme has proven itself as a pioneer in the advanced biofuels space, by being the first to do many things including scale-up, production and road testing of a variety of advanced biofuels that can simultaneously meet current U.S. fuel specifications while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by over 80 per cent,’ said Chris Schaepe, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners.

‘Since 2001 VantagePoint Venture Partners has focused its CleanTech efforts on identifying and investing in the leading company in those sectors best addressing the issues of natural resource limitations, climate change and energy independence,’ added Stephan Dolezalek, managing director and CleanTech Group Lead, VantagePoint Venture Partners. ‘The potential role of algae in achieving these targets has long been clear, but it has taken a while for a definitive category leader to arise. We believe that Solazyme has now emerged as the preeminent player in the algal biomaterials and biofuels sector.’

Solazyme was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in South San Francisco.

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Tags: biofuel, cleantech, venture capital

This story was published on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 3:13 pm and is filed under North America, biomass/biofuel, deals. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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