50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy candidate profile: Biolight Harvesting
Biolight Harvesting
Based in: California
2008-09 ranking: Unranked
Business: Biolight Harvesting was founded by Steve Kay, dean of biological studies at the University of San Diego. Kay is one of the key drivers of the San Diego renaissance in microcrops, along with Steve Mayfield. The focus of the development stage company is to develop commercially-scalable renewable fuels and chemicals from blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria features a rapid rate of growth with a higher concentration in water, and an ability to harvest more readily, through techniques such as bioflocculation. Biolight is focused on brackish water and agricultural runoff as a long-term medium for cultivation.
Model: Technology licensing.
Past milestones:
1. Seed investment from CMEA Ventures, which also brought along the interim CEO Mike Melnick, a CMEA partner. Melnick is also chairman of the Seattle-based Inventure Chemicals, a microalgae company also in development stage which last year announced a demonstration-scale project with Israel’s Seambiotic (which was discontinued after Seambiotic could not raise financing) as well participating as the DARPA project led by General Atomics and a Washington State University led research partnership.
2. Development, in cooperation with Inventure, of a new, patent-pending oil extraction method which “unlocks cyanobacteria’s potential as a lipid producer”.
3. Development of a 40-acre pilot facility in California’s Imperial Valley, near Calipatria, which has been in production for “a couple of years”. The 10 1-acre ponds at the facility are used to evaluate strains as well as test downstream processing technologies.
Future milestones:
1. The company has embarked on a $10 million capital raise, which CMEA will participate in, which will in 2-3 years demonstrate a complete solution from strain selection to oil at a 10-15 acre facility producing one ton of algae per day.
2. Next milestone is the development of a 1000-acre scaled facility with a goal of refining the technologies prior to licensing and demonstrating the economics of the system.
3. Development of a synergistic microbial community in a pond culture, instead of a dominant monoculture based on a single strain of microalgae.
Metrics: Biolight sees an ultimate potential for cyanobacteria at more than 10,000 gallons per acre – “but the reality is not there yet for algae”.
Mike Melnick (CEO) quotable quotes: “The economics for making fuels from algae are too way off – the field recognizes this as a whole and is pursuing higher value products. You might see the production of commodity fuels in 3-5 years”.
“The real challenges are well downstream of algae production – in harvesting and oil extraction. One of the reasons that cyanobacteria had not been popular is because of problems with the old solvent-based methods of oil extraction.”
“We’re not going to take the risk of growing genetically-modified algae in open ponds.”
“The General Atomics DARPA project is hard-pressed to achieve the target” ($3 fuel within 2 years).
“There are two paths to scale up – the government and strategic partners. Sapphire was the last of its type (raising $100 million from VC).”
The Hot 50 for 2009-10 will be released Tuesday, 12/1. Between now and then, you’ll see profiles of potential candidates in the Digest, and you’ll have a chance to vote for your favorites. Reader response will count for 50 percent of a company’s overall score in the preparation of the rankings. The remaining 50 percent is voted by a panel of experts.
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