Thursday, July 5, 2007

Greenfuel cuts payroll in half, names Metcalfe interim CEO

Robert Metcalfe, co-founder of Marlborough's 3Com Corp. and principal at Waltham's Polaris Venture Partners, has taken the helm at Cambridge's GreenFuel Technologies Corp., a Polaris portfolio company.

The move includes the layoff of about half the company's 50-person work force.

The restructuring is the result of a "success failure" at the company's third-generation pilot site in Arizona, according to a memo distributed by Metcalfe to investors and employees. The site was successful at recycling CO2 using algae, but the site produced more algae than expected and GreenFuel could not harvest the growing algae quickly enough.

Metcalfe will act as interim CEO as the company looks for a permanent executive. Officials aim to emerge from the interim period by the end of the year. Goals for the period, aside from finding a new CEO, include raising interim cash from existing investors, restarting the Arizona project with a successful demonstration in August, and ramping up efforts at the company's fourth-generation plant in Asia.

Officials also hope to raise a new round of funding by year's end.

Founded in 2001 by former MIT researcher Issac Berzin -- who is now the company's CTO -- GreenFuel's technology uses algae to mitigate both nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide, key components in greenhouse gas emissions, from flue gas emissions in power plants burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas.

The company has raised more than $17 million in venture funding from Polaris Venture Partners (where Metcalfe is a partner), Access Industries and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.