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Print Edition StoriesThursday, May 14, 2009
GreenFuel reportedly shutting down, selling algae assets
By Efrain Viscarolasaga
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Cambridge-based GreenFuel Technologies Inc., a developer of algae bioreactors, has reportedly run out of funding and is closing its doors and putting its assets up for sale, according to local blogs.
GreenFuel was one of the pioneers in algae-based technology, developing a bioreactor that cleans waste gases while feeding algae for harvest and conversion into biofuels and other products. The company raised more than $70 million in venture funding since its inception in 2001, from an array of investors, including Waltham-based Polaris, Access Private Equity and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
But over the past two years, the company has gone through a series of fits and starts as it tried to scale its bioreactor to a commercial level. A demonstration plant in Arizona in 2007 “over produced,” causing the company to re-engineer and, as a result, shed staff and go through a restructuring as it searched for additional funding. At the time, Metcalfe, a board member and investor, was acting as interim CEO, and was later replaced by current CEO Simon Upfill-Brown, a former executive at Dow Chemical Co.
Last fall, the company made public its participation in a $92 million algae farm project in Spain in conjunction with Aurantia SA. But unable to find additional funding in the current economic market, GreenFuel has been forced into closing its door, according to reports from Xconomy and Greentech Media.
GreenFuel’s technology uses a series of algae-filled bioreactors that convert flue stream emissions from power plants into food for the algae. The algae cleanse the flue emissions and can be periodically harvested for use in biomass-based feeds, foods, fuels and other products.
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