Tag: AMRS

Jim Lane Sorghum Bicolor photo by Matt Lavin As Ceres points towards minimal plantings of its sweet sorghum hybrids in its key market of Brazil for next year, investors ask two questions. Will sweet sorghum realize its vast potential, and when? Just when many observers hoped that Ceres, Inc. (CERE) would dramatically expand hectares planted with its Blade hybrid sweet sorghum, the 2014 planting outlook was released last week and the total hectares crashed from 3000 in 2013 to 1000 in 2014. It’s a far cry...

Jim Lane Delays and cancellations photo via Bigstock Investor flights GEVO, SZYM, AMRS take off delayed by fog. How soon will the potential of three of the hottest companies in the field be realized? What are the key milestones coming up for the industrial biotech’s Gold Dust Triplets? In Colorado, Gevo (GEVO) reported its Q4 and full-year 2012 results this week and now the Q4 news for the gold-dust trio of Amyris (AMRS), Solazyme (SZYM) and Gevo is in certainly the most highly-heralded...

Jim Lane Address: 5885 Hollis Street, Emeryville, CA Year founded: 2003 Annual Revenues: $38 billion (DuPont overall for 2011) $1.2 billon (Industrial Biosciences unit for 2011) Company description: Amyris is an integrated renewable chemicals and fuels company founded in 2003 and based in Emeryville, CA, with additional operations in Chicago, IL and Campinas, Brazil. Amyris has over 400 employees, with three-quarters of its employees located in the United States. Amyris subsidiaries include Amyris Brasil Ltda., a wholly-owned Brazilian company through which Amyris conducts its Brazilian operations for the manufacture and...

Jim Lane Money trap photo via Bigstock  $104 million Elevance private financing round larger than last two IPOs; puts IPOs in focus; do the benefits outweigh the costs? Do advanced biofuels companies really need to be “thinking IPO”, industry leaders were asking this week after Elevance Renewable Sciences announced that it has raised $104 million in its Series E financing round. Lacustrine Limited via Genting Genomics Limited, wholly owned by Genting Berhad, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia led the round with Total Energy Ventures International, based in...

Jim Lane Next-gen, commercial scale biofuels debut in Minnesota – is the deck cleared for the isobutanol pioneer to soar? Not quite yet, with litigation and production ramp-up pending, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel. In Colorado, Gevo (GEVO) announced it has begun startup of the world’s first commercial biobased isobutanol production plant located in Luverne, Minn. “At 1 p.m. MDT yesterday we made history by initiating production of biobased isobutanol at commercial scale,” said Dr. Patrick Gruber, CEO of Gevo. “One year ago, we broke ground with a startup goal of less than 12...

Jim Lane  In this two-part series, we look at the IPO market for industrial biotech stocks. Who’s up, who’s down, who’s in the queue, and where might all this take us? Plus, an important update from Coskata. In Part I, today, we look at the performance of the six IPOs to date in the aftermarket, the Ceres IPO which is ready to price its IPO tonight, and look towards the IPO queue at important changes in Coskata’s recent filings. In Part II, tomorrow, we look at how Ceres performed, we’ll have an update on Amyris (AMRS), and...

Jim Lane The second technology focused on unlocking value in municipal solid waste comes to the public markets. Here’s our 10-minute version of the filing, with a translation of the risks into English. In Canada, Enerkem has filed an F-1 registration statement for a proposed $125 million initial public offering. The number of shares to be offered in the proposed offering and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined. The lead book-running managers for the offering are Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and BMO Capital Markets. The company is currently ranked #7...

Jim Lane Obama unveils an “all-out, all of the above” energy strategy. But is it really “all of the below”? Just election talk? Is ginning up a bioeconomy shelved for a year, or just a week? Meanwhile, hopeful news from Novozymes (NVZMY.PK) and the World Economic Forum. In Washington, President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union speech, and dashed hopes and expectations of a revival strategy for US industry through encouraging growth of the bioeconomy. His annual presidential address became the first in a number of years to avoid any mention of biofuels, ethanol,...

Jim Lane Following a stinging WSJ editorial board critique on cellulosic biofuels, we leave a fact-filled voice mail for News Corp to hack. Meanwhile, Mascoma lands $80M and heads for scale. The Wall Street Journal editorial page writers recently published a stinging indictment of cellulosic biofuels. Bottom line: the Journal is offering the shortfall in the cellulosic biofuels pool (around 2% of the overall US Renewable Fuel Standard this year), as evidence that government mandates and subsidies do not work, and that the US government has shoveled a lot of money into advanced biofuels for nothing....

Jim Lane Iowa algae and corn ethanol project points the way towards optimizing delivery of feed, fuel, carbon reduction. In our 10-part series, the Bioenergy Project of the Future, based on extensive interviews with industry leaders, we outlined what is expected to be the multi-product, multi-input structure of biofuels and biomaterials projects in the future. In step 1, we identified the acquisition of an existing first-generation ethanol plant as an appropriate base, because it had so many assets already in place, including a feedstock aggregation system, relations with growers and customers, rail lines, roads, water, power and so on. In...

Jim Lane The first zero-cost feedstock biofuels company comes to the public markets with its IPO. Like to see how this “Back the the Futuresque” technology unlocks value by converting household garbage into transportation fuel? Here’s our 10-minute version of the IPO from Fulcrum Bioenergy. In California, Fulcrum Bioenergy has filed an S-1 registration statement for a proposed $115 million initial public offering. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined. The company proposes to list under the symbol FLCM. UBS Investment Bank...

Jim Lane Like to quickly understand the surge in renewable chemicals and one of the hottest companies in the hottest sector of the bioconomy? Here’s our 10-minute version of the IPO from Elevance Renewable Sciences. Complete with the risks, translated into English from the original SEC-speak. In Illinois, Elevance Renewable Sciences filed its S-1 registration statement relating to a proposed $100 million initial public offering. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the offering have not yet been determined. The company indicated that it has apply to list the stock on NASDAQ under the ERSI symbol. The...

by Ivan Castano Second-generation biofuel IPOs are all the rage this year with recent deals pricing well above initial expectations and a growing number of companies expected to tap the capital markets in coming months. But analysts caution some of these companies will have a hard time wooing investor interest unless they become more transparent about their accounts and future path to profitability. "None of these companies will be earning much any time soon so investors want to see clarity and visibility about the enterprise story behind the companies," says Stacey Hudson, an analyst with Raymond...

Jim Lane Will the new fermentation technologies completely shatter preconceptions about biofuels and bio-based products – and redefine the way in which Western Civ approaches the production of fuel, food, feed, and fiber? The new Brew Barons are working hard to make it so. The Regents of the University of Washington generally only admit under conditions of duress – waterboarding is typically employed – that I graduated from their institution. At issue? What they felt was an inappropriate level of focus on beer and other fermentation products as a subject of personal discovery disguised as undergraduate research....