Solazyme Brews Up Fresh Funding for Algae Fuel Plans

Solazyme, a San Francisco California-based biofuel developing company, has corroborated the news that it has received $52M funding from Morgan Stanley. The company further stated that its latest fund addition includes a substantial investment from Chevron that would help the company in hustling up its commercialization process.

In contrast to most of the algae biofuel developing companies, Solazyme totally avoided the use of bioreactors for producing biofuel utilizing photosynthesis factor. The company on the contrary has developed genetically muted algae that utilize a zymosis process in which the sugar is promptly changed into oil for use as a regular fuel. The company is looking for additional funding to build up its production facility and produce biofuel in larger volumes. The funding it received from Chevron also has raised speculations about it partnering with Chevron for building a bigger plant for commercial production of the biofuel.

Though the company did not provide much detail on its future plans and use of cash funding, the company clearly appears to be leading in the race of developing low cost fuels from algae. Earlier the company had made an agreement with US Navy to provide jet fuel produced from algae and has already delivered nearly 1,500 gallons of biofuel for testing by the Department of Defense.