Thursday, May 15, 2008

GreenFuel grabs nearly $14M in latest funding

Continuing its road to recovery after cutting half its staff and entering a period of restructuring almost one year ago, algae bioreactor maker GreenFuel Technologies Inc. of Cambridge has raised $13.9 million in funding from existing investors, including Access Private Equity, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Polaris Venture Partners.

The new round brings the company's total funding to more than $36 million since its inception in 2001, including a $5.5 million bridge round received last summer.

Almost half of the new funding -- $6.3 million -- will be applied to corporate debt, while the balance will be used to continue the development of existing algae farming projects, according to a statement from Bob Metcalfe, GreenFuel's interim CEO and a general partner at Polaris Venture Partners.

Once such project, which has not been announced by the company, began in January, according to Metcalfe's statements. It has been reported that the company landed a $92 million project to build a an algae-based fuel plant in Europe, but the deal has not been confirmed by officials, and GreenFuel did not return calls this morning in time to comment. The company also executed pilot programs in Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and New York.

Last July, after an algae development project produced unexpected results and a new round of funding fell through, the then 50-person company was forced to cut its staff in half and went through a restructuring, including the installation of Metcalfe as interim CEO.

Founded by former MIT researcher and current CTO Isaac Berzin, GreenFuel's technology uses algae to mitigate both nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide, key components in greenhouse gas emissions, from the flue streams of oil, coal and gas burning power plants. The resulting algal biomass can also be used for energy applications, from feed stock to the creation of biodiesel and other fuels.