by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) One of biofuels’ most-celebrated technologies falters; the struggle to raise capital claims a high-profile victim.
…The company had been known for its awesomely promising technology, leisurely pace towards commercialization compared to synth-bio companies like Amyris, brutal fundraising struggles, and for its regular turn-over in CEOs.
…The capital raises were relatively light along the way – the company always balancing the need for cash against maintaining valuations and “giving the company away”.
…LS9 aimed to genetically modify e.coli to induce the bacteria to produce hydrocarbons and high-value alcohols — like Amyris (which was modifying yeast, by contrast) it was part of the wave of “drop-in fuel” companies that were producing biofuels that required no infrastructure change.
It’s special appeal: LS9 could make the conversion from sugars to products in a single step …
…The company had shared with Virdia in a $9 million grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) together with partner Virdia to improve and demonstrate an integrated process to convert biomass feedstocks into fermentable sugars and then into diesel and other fuel and chemical products – but dextrose was the feedstock of choice at the Florida demonstration facility.
…A friend of the Digest writes: “I was in Brazil last month and got an earful about that from a very high up there on [Amyris]. If their shiny high grade fermenter was not up to snuff they are really in trouble…having worked in nice university labs and clean room pharmaceuticals they did not know what was awaiting them in the down market dirty world of biofuel. You can’t make biofuels with anything you got to keep that clean.”
…Cobalt and Aurora have long since trained their focus on higher-value products and certainly now Amyris too (though Total has continued to train Amyris technology on the fuels sector). Solazyme, Joule, Mascoma, LanzaTech and INEOS Bio are chasing a portfolio of fuels and higher-value products. Proterro is focused on producing intermediate renewable sugars. Coskata has pivoted towards natural gas as a feedstock. Leaving only Butamax, Algenol and Sapphire Energy avowedly focused on a fuels-first strategy. READ MORE and MORE (Update) and MORE (Gigaom)