Algae maker GreenFuel Technologies scores cash and customer

GreenFuel Technologies on Wednesday said that it has completed a round of funding to ramp up its algae-farming projects.

The company landed $13.9 million, which was led by Access Private Equity, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Polaris Venture Partners.

A portion of the money will retire debt the company borrowed following a corporate shakeup last year that put Bob Metcalfe in as interim-CEO. The remaining $7.6 million in new capital, which completes its series B round, will go to scale up technology projects.

Algae being grown at GreenFuel Technologies' test site at Arizona Public Service power plant.

(Credit: GreenFuel Technologies)

In a statement, Metcalfe said the company will announce a new CEO, a C round of funding, and signed customers for its technology.

GreenFuel also disclosed that one algae-growing project began in January but declined to provide details.

In March, news Web site Xconomy reported that GreenFuel had landed a customer in Europe that could be worth $92 million.

GreenFuel builds bioreactors that grow algae at sites that emit a lot of carbon dioxide. Its first pilot was at an Arizona power plant.

The algae is harvested and can be turned into biodiesel or other forms of biomass that can be converted into electricity or other liquid fuels.

A number of companies are developing algae technologies because of the rising cost of soybeans to make biodiesel and growing concern over growing food crops for fuels.

[fokkwp]

Algae is about the only potential biofuel that doesn't ruin rainforests or drive the price of grain beyond the ability of hungry millions to buy and consume it. Algae is probably the brightest star in the alternative fuels research sky. Yet here these folks are, scraping for a few millions in capital, while Congress has pledged 18 billion for nukes that no one will ever complete and we spend 3 trillion on military incursions to project power into oil regions so we can scrabble over the last drops of that failing technology. Absurd? Suicidal? Please don't ask me for a carbon neutral sticker on my car or other token nonsense. Billions and trillions is the scale that's needed, available, and would put the US on a leadership course to be the *provider* of fuels just when other nations become desperate enough to pay us extremely well for it.