French oil major Total backs biogas company Coskata

28 April 2010

Coskata, a US developer of technologies for processing bio-refuse into ethanol, has secured an undisclosed amount of new equity in a funding round led by French oil company Total.

Also participating in the transaction were a number of Coskata’s prior investors, including Blackstone Cleantech Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Advanced Technology Ventures, Globespan Capital Partners and Arancia.

French oil major Total will take a seat on Coskata’s board of directors following the round.

The company said the proceeds of the financing will support Coskata’s bio-ethanol commercialisation activities while ensuring advancement of new product technologies.

‘This investment by Total, one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies and a major player in chemicals, confirms the potential of our technology platform and enhances our plans for commercial deployment,’ said Bill Roe, president and CEO of Coskata.

‘Having a strategic investor with a long-term view of developing and advancing Coskata’s platform technology will strongly enhance our position in the biofuels and chemicals markets,’ he added.

The company previously raised over $76m from Blackstone Group, Advanced Technology Ventures, Globespan Capital Partners, General Motors, GreatPoint Ventures and Khosla Ventures.

Founded in 2006 in Illinois, Coskata is a biology-based renewable energy company with a platform technology that enables the low-cost production of biofuels and chemicals from virtually any carbonaceous material using anaerobic microorganisms and bioreactor designs.

Copyright © 2010 NewNet

Tags: bioethanol, biofuel, biogas

This story was published on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 5:06 pm and is filed under Europe, 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.

Leave a Reply