Solazyme vs Genomatica: Who's the Best?

Background: This is a second round, West Regional match-up between #1 seed Solazyme and #8 seed Genomatica, in the 2011 Transformative Technologies tourney, from Biofuels Digest.

Voting: Open to all Biofuels Digest subscribers. Voting links are in the Biofuels Digest daily newsletter. To subscribe (free), visit here.

The winner gets: Most votes advances to the Sweet Sixteen (round of 16), and a shot at the Biofuels Elite Eight.

The loser: Goes home.

Laurels: Solazyme is the 2nd ranked company in the 2010-11 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy poll. Genomatica is #1 in the 2011-12 30 Hottest Companies in Renewable Chemicals & Materials poll.

The match-up: It’s a West Coast SynthBio Shootout.

Solazyme is coming off a series of partnership announcements with Roquette and others, and a celebrated IPO. It’s path of growing algae in the dark and producing renewable oils has seen the company sell out its capacity through 2015 as it scrambles to raise $$ to meet the demand. Solazyme took 79 percent of the vote in its first-round match-up against OakBio.

Genomatica is a chemicals-centric company with a startlingly interesting fermentation platform, using advanced synthetic biology, and it also fast tracking towards a demonstration of its technology at scale, and a first commercial plant. Genomatica took 64 percent of the vote in its first-round match-up against Fulcrum Bioenergy.