Of greatest concern is that as financing for cleantech gets tight, the brightest startups will struggle to find early stage capital and those companies nearing the path to commercialization will find it hard to find scaling capital. Read more »
Using chip and hard disc drive manufacturing processes, startup Gridtential is rethinking the simple lead acid battery to be able to store more energy and be lower cost. The company just got a seed round from The Roda Group to move closer to commercialization. Read more »
2013 is a year where algae fuel makers are finally starting to try to reach scale where they can compete with oil. Will they make it? Read more »
For seemingly the first time in history, an algae fuel blend will be sold to regular consumers in select cities in Northern California through a month-long pilot program for gas station owner Propel Fuels and algae fuel maker Solazyme. Read more »
Come take a look at the first phase of Sapphire Energy’s algae farm in New Mexico. When eventually built out it will produce 100 barrels of algae biofuel a day, and currently the five-year-old startup is making algae fuel on ponds across about 100 acres. Read more »
Despite that venture funding for cleantech is cooling off, some companies are still able to get money for growth. For example, biochemical company Elevance Renewable Sciences has raised a $104 million Series E round from oil giant Total’s investing arm, and Malaysian conglomerate Genting Berhad. Read more »
After nine-years, an IPO and $125 million in venture funding, Solazyme is finally ready to break into biofuels in a more commercial way: this week Solazyme announced the ground-breaking of a biofuel plant in Brazil through a joint venture with Bunge. Read more »
At least one venture firm is still standing strong behind energy technology. Ten-year-old Braemar Energy Ventures announced on Wednesday that it has closed its latest third fund, of $300 million, to invest in energy technologies. Read more »
One of the difficulties with investing in cleantech startups is that investors sometimes need to take very long term views of the companies they back, despite that companies can be risky. Next-gen biofuel company KiOR is a prime example of this long term, high risk phenomenon. The reality is that the liquidity of KiOR’s IPO could be locked up for a long time, potentially many years down the road, until — and if — the company scales up and meets expectations. This research note examines KiOR’s place in the market and what it means for other early-stage companies when it comes to investment. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Amyris, BIOeCON and Range Fuels and Solazyme. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Sometime shortly after 7 a.m. PST on Monday, execs at algae oil company Solazyme and members of the media will board a plane at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport and take off on the first commercial U.S. domestic flight to use Solazyme’s algae-based jet fuel. Read more »
Looks like Groupon will go public on Friday morning at $20 per share, giving it a valuation of $12.6 billion for its online coupon business. Let’s compare it to some of the greentech startups and big energy firms and try not to get disturbed. Read more »
Biofuels made from algae that will be able to scale, and compete with oil, will have to be synthesized and will not come from nature, says genomics scientist and entrepreneur Craig Venter. That notion could put a damper on Venter’s current deal with oil giant Exxon. Read more »
Next-gen biofuel and biochemical companies Genomatica and Mascoma have filed notices recently indicating that they plan to go public some time soon. But how are the other next-gen biofuel companies that have gone public in recent months now faring on the stock market? Mostly down. Read more »
The U.S. military has stepped up efforts to invest and use more cleantech at its bases and battlefields, including renewable electricity, energy storage and a host of energy efficiency technologies. Here is a list of plans and projects underway. Read more »
To promote biofuel production, the U.S. government is becoming both the investor and customer. The White House announced Tuesday a $510 million investment to speed up biofuel production for the military and beyond. Read more »
After the great market sell-off yesterday, stocks are rebounding slightly on Tuesday, including many of the greentech stocks that took a beating yesterday. But most of them are only up slightly. Here’s the latest: Read more »
Algae oil company Solazyme, which went public in May of this year, reported both revenue and losses up for the second quarter of the year. At the same time, the company said it expects to produce 500,000 metric tons of algae oil by 2015. Read more »
When it comes to greentech investing, it’s basically all or nothing, and either you have a commitment to the field or you don’t, says VantagePoint Capital founder Alan Salzman. Read more »
Biofuel companies may not get as much venture capital investments, but they sure are attracting a good number of investors in the public markets. Renewable Energy Group is turning to the public market route and on Monday said it will go public to raise up to $100 million. Read more »
Cleantech venture investments dropped by a third in the second quarter of this year compared to the same quarter last year, according to the Cleantech Group. However, energy efficiency technologies such as LED lighting and energy management software are still getting some love from private investors. Read more »
Four-year-old OPX Biotechnologies, which uses genomics to make biofuel production more efficient and economic, is in the process of raising a $45 million round, and has closed on $37 million of that funding, according to a filing. Read more »
Waste to fuel startup Enerkem already had trash king Waste Management on its side — now Enerkem has scored backing from oil refiner giant Valero. Enerkem announced it has raised $60 million from Valero, along with existing investors like Waste Management and Braemar Energy Ventures. Read more »
On its first day of trading, algae oil and fuel company Solazyme, saw its shares trade up around 15 percent from its IPO price of $18 per share. At one point Solazyme’s shares hit $22 per share, but leveled back down to close at $20.71. Read more »
This morning, as algae oil maker Solazyme made its debut on the Nasdaq, the company’s co-founders and investors are popping the champagne corks on pricing shares at the high end at $18 per share. Who made good in Solazyme’s debut? Hint: The Roda Group, co-founders and Braemar. Read more »
Algae oil and fuel maker Solazyme priced shares for its IPO late last night at $18 per share — above its previously estimated price range — enabling the company to raise around $198 million when it debuts on the Nasdaq on Friday. Read more »
Algae oil maker Solazyme has set the estimated terms of its planned IPO and boosted its maximum offering to $184 million, almost double the $100 million IPO it filed for in March. Solazyme plans to sell 9.98 million shares at a range of $15 to $17. Read more »
Nine-year-old energy-focused venture capital firm Braemar Energy Ventures is looking to raise $300 million for its latest fund, Braemar Energy Ventures III, according to an SEC filing. Read more »
Amyris has opened its first industrial scale facility to turn sugarcane syrup into Biofene, a form of the industrial chemical farnesene, which is a fragrant hydrocarbon that’s used to make cosmetics and lubricants. It’s a big step, though not quite yet to commercial-scale biofuel production. Read more »
Algae oil maker Solazyme filed for an IPO late Friday, joining the pack of next-gen biofuel IPOs that have occurred in recent months. Here’s Solazyme’s S-1 by the numbers: Read more »
Algae could land on the Nasdaq some time this year. Late Friday algae company Solazyme filed for an IPO of up to $100 million. The move follows the company’s announcement that it had struck a deal with Dow Chemical to make a algae-based fluid for transformers. Read more »
There’s a whole lotta stuff to make out of algae beyond the oft-discussed algae fuel. The latest is an algae-based insulation fluid to bathe transformers, courtesy of a partnership between Dow Chemical and algae startup Solazyme. Read more »
Grab your biofuel startups fast, Lux Research says — the field of contenders with game-changing technologies for turning non-food feedstocks into useful hydrocarbons is getting sparser by the minute. The report sees Big Oil and consumer products conglomerates quickly winnowing the field of the best technologies. Read more »
It’ll be a long road for algae biofuel producers to make any significant dent in the world’s overall fuel supply. How long? Consider this: By 2020, the algae biofuel industry is likely to produce only 61 million gallons per year globally, Pike Research said Wednesday. Read more »
Two and a half years ago we put together this cheat sheet on 15 algae fuel startups you need to know. But boy have things changed since then. Here’s our updated 2010 version of our original 15 algae fuel startups bringing pond scum to fuel tanks. Read more »
Algae fuel is likely decades from powering our vehicles, which is one of the reasons that federal lawmakers already are focusing on tax breaks for companies in the field. Yesterday the House passed a bill that gives $1.01 per gallon tax credit to algae fuel producers. Read more »
Joule Unlimited, a startup that promises to genetically engineer an organism that eats CO2 and produces a drop-in diesel fuel, has landed a patent on its “recombinant biosynthesis” technology. Read more »
Algae fuel startup Solazyme already had a long list of backers — from Chevron’s VC arm to Morgan Stanley — but this week, the company says it’s added two more high profile names: investor Richard Branson and food and personal product giant Unilever. Read more »
Dutch oil giant Shell and Brazilian ethanol giant Cosan sealed the deal Wednesday on a $12 billion joint venture to turn sugarcane into pump-ready fuel. How will the massive partnership affect Codexis, Shell’s biocatalyst partner and recent entrant to the public markets? Read more »
The well-funded Range Fuels said it has begun producing cellulosic methanol from its first commercial factory and plans to begin making cellulosic ethanol sometime this quarter. Read more »
Greentech has become a big subject in corporate conference rooms over the past year. Large companies have been among the top investors so far this year, and the latest example came from Samsung Electronics. Read more »
