Amyris Biotechnologies evolving ethanol

Amyris Biotechnologies, a synthetic biology company with ambitious plans to re-engineer ethanol, has raised a $20M first round from Silicon Valley heavy hitters ... and is welcoming to its board none other than the infamous John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB).

The financing was led by Khosla Ventures (as in Vinod Khosla of Sun, Juniper and AOL fame), with additional participation from KPCB and Texas Pacific Group Ventures (TPGV).

It's harder to find bigger names in Silicon Valley than Doerr and Khosla. Clearly, this is going to be one worth watching.

The company also announced the appointment of John G. Melo, previously president of U.S. Fuels Operations for bp plc., as chief executive officer. Also joining the Amyris board at this time, in addition to Doerr, are Samir Kaul, general partner, Khosla Ventures and Geoff Duyk, managing director, TPGV.

So what is Amyris up to? Well, in addition to its ongoing effort to create a low-cost malaria drug, Amyris will add a "new program aimed at renewably producing second-generation, high-performance biofuels with increased cost-effectiveness."

So what exactly does that mean? The company won't specify yet, beyond saying they're working on a new type of ethanol that addresses some of the concerns about the fuel today.