Amyris inches toward Series C close

Emeryville, Calif.-based Amyris Biotechnologies said today it raised an additional $17.1 million for its Series C from new backers GrupoCornelioBrennard of Brazil and Naxos UK.

Amyris has now raised $41.8 million of the round, which the company hopes to close before the end of the year at $60 million. Amyris held the first close about five weeks ago from investors Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, TPG Biotech and Votorantim Novos Negocios (see Friendly competitor LS9 congratulates Amyris on $25M raise).

The biofuel startup has now secured $165 million for its technology that makes biofuels and chemicals from synthetic microorganisms (see Amyris pulls in $70M for unique biofuel and Amyris Biotechnologies evolving ethanol). By altering the metabolic pathways of yeast, Amyris said it is able to engineer "living factories" that convert sugar cane into chemicals and renewable fuels, which it said have performance attributes comparable to petroleum-based products.

Amyris said it plans to enter commercial production in 2011. The company is currently securing the site and expects to order equipment later this year.

Amyris has a pilot plant in Emeryville that houses two 300-liter fermentors producing thousands of gallons of Amyris product a year for testing (see Microbes drive new Amyris biodiesel plant). Amyris opened its larger demonstration facility in June in Brazil, which includes a pilot plant similar to the one in Emeryville plus two 5,000-liter fermentors, which have the capacity to produce 35,000 liters of product a year for testing.

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