Amyris pulls in $70M for unique biofuel

Amyris Biotechnologies, which announced $70 million in Series B funding today, says it can make a biofuel that can run in regular car engines, not just diesel, and it can do it with current biofuel plant technology.

Unlike other cellulosic startups, Emeryville, Calif.-based Amyris, spun out from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2003, isn't making ethanol.

"Our fuels are hydrocarbons. They're designed, as closely as possible, to resemble components in current gasoline, in petroleum diesel, in jet fuel," Neil Renninger, Sr. VP of development and co-founder of Amyris Biotechnologies, told the Cleantech Group.

"We expect them to be able to be used at very, very high blends."

Using synthetic biology, Amyris re-programs microbes to function as living factories for the environmentally-friendly production of high-value chemicals.

"We went about the process of identifying, if you had to start from first principals, what would you make as a biofuel?" said Renninger.

"Our skill set, what we bring, is the ability to engineer microbes to make hydrocarbons. That's where our expertise lies. Changing the cellular metabolism, so that instead of, for example, making ethanol, our bugs make hydrocarbons," he said.

Another company fiddling on the molecular level for biofuel is Laguna Hills, Calif.'s Coda Genomics. That company is working on making a more efficient yeast for the fermentation of sugar into ethanol (see Making yeast beefier).

Amyris, with just under 100 employees, and growing, has some high profile backers for its biofuel project, including Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. But Amyris is no stranger to high-profile funding.

It's part of a nonprofit group developing an inexpensive anti-malaria drug that received a $42.6 million grant in 2004 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Amyris said it converted a microbe known for its ability to make alcohol, such as yeast, into a chemical factory for artemisinin, a proven anti-malarial drug, for that project. The drug is expected to be produced next year.

Khosla, Kleiner and TPG put up $20 million in a Series A in October 2006 to support the company's initial work on biofuels. This new round, led by Duff Ackerman & Goodrich Ventures, and including Khosla, Kleiner and TPG, will allow Amyris to take the next step.

"We'll have a pilot plant that we hope will be operational late next year or early 2009," said Renninger.

The company is still looking at locations for the plant, but has been talking to the state of Alabama and the state of California.

"We're looking at on the order of 100,000 gallons per year, if we were running the facility flat out," said Renninger.

The company probably won't have to build it's own plant, as Renninger said the company is designing its production systems to work effectively in today's ethanol production infrastructure. He said they should be able to adapt current facilities to make their new biofuels.

Amyris expects to start pumping out its biodiesel commercially in late 2010 or early 2011, with its bio-gasoline following a year or two after that. And another year after that comes the company's bio-jet fuel.

"We're talking to a few potential customers," said Renninger.

As for feedstocks, the company can take anything you can get sugar out of.

"Initially we're focused on the cheapest, most greenhouse gas friendly feedstock possible, and right now that feedstock is sugarcane."

And Amyris' biofuel may not be just a green replacement for gasoline or diesel, it may be better.

"Our fuels have very impressive cold flow properties," said Renninger. "It remains liquid down below minus 50 degrees Celsius," he said of the company's biodiesel.

With startups like BioEnergy International, as well as corn-ethanol giants like Poet and VeraSun, all getting into the biofuel game, Amyris could end up in a crowded market.

"We're very excited to see cellulosic companies succeed, because all it means is cheaper, cheaper sugar for us."

Today's funding was the first tranche of its Series B. Amyris expects to close the second tranche by the end of the year.

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