Segetis Brings in $17.2M for Renewable Chemicals

Segetis, a startup developing chemicals made from biomass (rather than petroleum), raised $17.2 million this week as part of a planned $22 million Series B financing round, according to a filing with the SEC (hat tip PEHub). Backers include Khosla Ventures, which invested $15 million in Segetis back in 2007, and the Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund — a $150 million venture fund run by the Malaysian government and Burrill & Co. that’s meant to promote biotech in the Southeast Asian country.

The process for making renewable chemicals is similar to that for making transportation fuels from bio-based materials. “The liberation of that carbon from the biomass is ultimately what we’re all trying to get to,” Snehal Desai, Business VP for Segetis, told us last year. (The startup uses non-food agricultural materials and forestry feedstocks in its process.) Venture capitalists have generally focused more heavily on biofuels — investing billions of dollars in efforts to make fuels from corn, switchgrass, algae and other materials.

But the market for renewable chemicals has garnered interest in recent months. For example, earlier this year Rennovia picked up $12.3 million in a first round of venture funding, and Draths Corp. raised $21.7 million in third-round financing.

As ThinkEquity analyst David Woodburn put it to us this fall, most next-generation biofuels startups these days mention renewable chemicals in their corporate presentations, even if the opportunity doesn’t have prominent placement on their web sites. According to Woodburn, these companies could target thousands of individual chemical products and markets.

Founded in 2006, Segetis built up some credibility in the race to commercialize these products last year with the appointment of a new chief executive — Jim Stoppert — who previously headed up bioproduct development at the chemical giants Dow, Cargill and NatureWorks (a plant-based plastics maker owned by Cargill). But according to profiles on LinkedIn (hat tip Finance & CommercE), he left Segetis this month, and Atul Thakrar, startup Soane Energy‘s former president and chief operating officer, has taken the role.

Stoppert is still listed on as president and CEO on the Segetis web site, and we’ve reached out to the company for confirmation of the change.

Comments have been disabled for this post