alarm:clock

Alternative Energy - Friday, October 13, 2006

3 More Alt Energy Start-ups Funded This Week

Makani Power, an Emeryville, CA-based stealth start-up has raised $10M in Series A funding from Google, says PE Wire. From what little we know, this is the oddest of the 3 investments. Makani has sprung from Squid Labs, a quasi think tank comprised of MIT grad Renaissance men that has flung off projects like Instructables -- a social network that describes DIY projects -- and also does contract R&D work. What do these guys know about alt energy and why did Google want to park $10M there? We'll have to be patient with the answer.

The biggest alt energy deal of the week was Amyris, which got $20M from high-profile investors to find alternative fuel. The round was led by Khosla Ventures with Kleiner Perkins. Amyris' take is that there is not enough corn or other natural alt energy sources to make a dent in the market, so they claim a process for synthetic biofuels. They have brought on a pedigreed CEO recently, who was president of US Fuels Operations for British Petroleum. The start-up started out targeting pharmaceutical projects and even got a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation targeting malaria, but clearly with its new CEO it is going after the alt energy market.

Lastly, Primafuel out of Long Beach, CA has raised nearly $6M in Series A funding, says PE Wire. This one remains well under-ground but we will keep our eye on it.