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1. Bill Gates Jumps into Pond Scum: Sapphire Raises Over $100M
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2. Boone's Inspiration: Babcock & Brown Expands Texas Wind
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3. Battery Maker PowerGenix Charges Up With $30M
Bill Gates Jumps into Pond Scum: Sapphire Raises Over $100M
Craig Rubens - Hitlines
Bill Gates joins Martin Tobias as a fan of the algae-to-fuel startup Sapphire Energy. The San Diego, Calif.-based startup is working on squeezing green crude from algae for high octane fuels and today says that it has more than doubled its funding to over $100 million.
Gates’ Cascade Investment joined ARCH Venture Partners, Wellcome Trust and Venrock in the investment round. This new funding, for which the specifics were not disclosed, makes Sapphire one of the best-funded startups looking to squeeze fuel from pond scum.
Founded just last year, Sapphire has moved quickly. Earlier this year the company said it produced ASTM-certifiable 91 octane gasoline — the premium stuff at the pump. But Sapphire’s plans for a commercial scale plant are still three to five years away. When the plant is completed, the company hopes to produce what it calls “green crude” for $50 to $80 per barrel on the scale of 10,000 barrels a day.
The idea is that by combining photosynthetic microorganisms, sun, CO2 and water through proprietary processes we can continue to get our greasy oil fix — but from algae. Sapphire says it has a solution that can scale.
Biocrudes have been seeing a lot of investment action recently. South San Francisco-based Solazyme raised $45.4 million in series C for its sunlight-less fermentation process. Emeryville, Calif.-based Amyris Biotechnologies has over $110 million in capital and a partner in Brazilian ethanol distributor Crystalev to develop jet fuel, gasoline and diesel fuel from sugar cane. Meanwhile, LS9, also in South San Francisco, has raised $20 million to use synthetic biology to create "renewable petroleum."
Previously, Sapphire had raised $50 million from ARCH Venture Partners, the Wellcome Trust and Venrock.
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Boone's Inspiration: Babcock & Brown Expands Texas Wind
Craig Rubens - Energy
When T. Boone Pickens has touted wind as the way of the future, he has referred to the Sweetwater Wind Farm as a great model that shows “what can happen up through the wind corridor.” The Sweetwater farm, at 585 megawatts, is one of the largest in the country and is owned and operated by Babcock & Brown, an Australian investment firm and wind energy vet. But B&B has plans for 1,000 megawatts of new wind energy capacity in west Texas, which could give Pickens a run for the world’s largest wind farm — just yesterday, B&B announced it had finalized financing and started construction on a 79.5 megawatt Majestic Wind Farm near Panhandle, Texas.
While Pickens has spent millions buying headlines for his wind-powered Pickens Plan, B&B has quite a head-start. The company currently has five wind farms under construction, three of which are in Texas, with a total of 567.5 megawatts of capacity and a price tag of over $1 billion. When those projects are completed, B&B will own or manage 25 wind farms in the U.S. with a capacity of over 2,000 megawatts. The Majestic farm, scheduled for completion this year, is just down the road from Picken’s proposed 4,000 megawatt farm in Pampa, Texas. Will the farms share transmission access?
Both Pickens and B&B have been working with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) — the body in charge of figuring how to connect the rich wind energy resources of west Texas to the power-thirsty urban centers in the east. Based on ERCOT’s report, the Public Utility Commission of Texas has selected a plan that is estimated to cost $4.93 billion and will accommodate 18,456 megawatts of wind power, plenty of space for many wind developers.
Now PUC is reviewing bids from transmission companies. B&B’s affiliate Tejas Transmission has proposed to plan, finance and construct approximately $1 billion worth of transmission lines. Pickens, meanwhile, has been pulling political strings for his $2 billion transmission proposal bundled with a $1.5 billion water pipeline.
B&B has already secured grid access for the Majestic projects on the existing SPP transmission grid to supply power to the Panhandle region. The company says that development of the 1,000 megawatt Panhandle Wind Project is ongoing and plans to have it coincide with the ERCOT transmission project. PUC is expected to designate transmission providers by late 2008.
Image courtesy of Babcock & Brown.
900 million PCs or 300 billion mobile handsets. Which is the bigger opportunity? Mobilize 08: GigaOM’s Next-Generation Mobile Conference
Battery Maker PowerGenix Charges Up With $30M
Katie Fehrenbacher - Hitlines
In May when we talked with PowerGenix, an eight-year-old startup that makes nickel-zinc batteries, the company’s CEO Dan Squiller told us the team was looking to raise a final round of funding in the coming months, followed by a possible IPO in 2010. Well, looks like the funding is right on schedule — this morning PowerGenix says it has raised $30 million in a Series D round led by Bessemer Venture Partners and including existing investors Angeleno Group, Advent International, Braemar Energy Ventures, Granite Ventures, OnPoint Technologies and Technology Partners.
PowerGenix already sells its batteries into the power tool and scooter market (including electric bikes), but is angling to sell its batteries into the hybrid vehicle market, specifically parallel hybrids like the Prius — the company isn’t shooting for the all electric vehicle market. PowerGenix claims that its nickel-zinc battery is 35 percent smaller than the Prius' nickel metal hydride battery, has a better energy density and also costs less.
Previously PowerGenix raised $30.8 million, and this latest round brings the company’s total to $60.75 million. Will this latest funding put the company on track for growth and an IPO in 2 years? We’re not sure, but it’s a positive sign that lithium ion battery maker A123Systems is going public.
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