05/16/2012 EdeniQ Secures Over $30 Million for Biomaterials and Biofuels Innovation
Clean Edge News
EdeniQ, a biomaterials and sustainable fuels company, recently announced it has raised over $30 million in additional capital. EdeniQ is a biomaterials innovator, developing processes and products that unlock sugars from renewable natural resources that can ultimately provide the raw material needed for sustainable chemical and fuel production. The financing came in the form of both an equity investment and a debt facility. The equity investment was led by both existing investors, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Cyrus Capital, The Westly Group, Angeleno Group, I2BF Global Ventures and Element Partners as well as a new investor, Flint Hills Resources Renewables LLC, a subsidiary of privately held Koch Industries, Inc. Flint Hills Resources Renewables LLC is among the largest ethanol producers in the United States with four ethanol plants in Iowa. Comerica and ATEL Ventures provided the debt facility.
Through its proprietary products, EdeniQ states that it increases yield and output at existing ethanol plants and provides a pathway to transition to cellulosic feedstock. EdeniQ's Cellunator(TM) mills a variety of biomass, including non-food plant materials, into small, uniform pieces of feedstock that can be converted to sugars. The company's Pathway(TM) enzymes, in turn, break down the cellulosic materials that are already part of the ethanol production process. The EdeniQ systems can be added as bolt-on technologies to existing ethanol facilities or integrated into new cellulosic ethanol processing plants.