Solazyme's S-1: By the Numbers

Algae oil maker Solazyme filed for an IPO late Friday, joining the pack of next-gen biofuel IPOs that have occurred in recent months (Amyris, Gevo, and another one coming soon according to investor Vinod Khosla). While it’s not the first algae company to file an S-1 — PetroAlgae filed a pretty weak one back in August — it’s the first algae oil company that I know of that is generating real revenues, and has a shot at a decent public market debut. Here’s Solazyme’s S-1 by the numbers: Maximum IPO offering: $100 million Revenues, losses: For the year ended December 31 2010, Solazyme generated revenues of $37.97 million and lost $16.28 million over the same period. That's compared to generating revenues of $9.16 million, and losing $13.67 million for the year ended 2009. Those losses are not bad at all compared to the dozen of so greentech S-1′s I’ve read over the past couple of years. As of December 31, 2010, Solazyme had accumulated a deficit of $52.8 million. Size of target market: Solazyme says its algae-based oil can be a replacement product for oils derived from petroleum, animal oils and plant oils. That combined market was a $3.1 trillion industry in 2010 says Solazyme. Cost of algae oil production: Solazyme says it will be able to produce algae oil for the fuels market at “below $1,000 per metric ton ($3.44 per gallon or $0.91 per liter) if produced in a built-for-purpose commercial plant.” Volumes with partners: Solazyme says Dow Chemical will purchase up to 20 million gallons of its oils in 2013, and 60 million gallons in 2015. At the same time, Qantas will purchase a minimum of 200 to 400 million liters of jet fuel per year. The company produced around 80,000 liters of algae diesel and jet fuel for the Navy in 2010. Current production: Solazyme says over the past year it has produced 500,000 liters of algae oil. New production facility: Solazyme says this month it entered into an agreement to purchase a facility in Peoria, Illinois, that has 128,000-liter fermenters, and an annual production capacity of over 2 million liters of algae oil. Nutritional products: Solazyme says it has created a 50/50 JV with Roquette Freres (a big ol’ starch company) to produce nutritional products, and will create a 50,000 metric ton per year plant near Roquette’s mill to produce those products. Patents: Solazyme says as of the first of March, the company owned two issued patents and over 125 patent applications. Private Equity: Solazyme has raised $129.3 million in equity from companies including Bunge N.A Holdings, Chevron, Unilever ad San -Ei Gen FFI Inc. Investors: The Roda Group holds 29.8 percent before the offering, the co-founders Harrison Dillon and Jonathan Wolfson both own 9.7 percent, The Fiddler Group owns 7.9 percent, Lightspeed Venture Partners owns 6 percent, and Braemer Energy ventures holds both 5.4 percent and 10.7 percent through two different funds. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

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Algae IPO: Solazyme Files for IPO, Up to $100M

Algae could land on the Nasdaq some time this year! Late Friday algae company Solazyme filed for an IPO of up to $100 million. The move follows the company’s announcement earlier this week that it had struck a deal with Dow Chemical to make a algae-based fluid for transformers. S-1′s are fun because they give a first look at companies real revenues and earnings. For the year ended December 31 2010, Solazyme generated revenues of $37.97 million and lost $16.28 million over the same period. That’s compared to generating revenues of $9.16 million, and losing $13.67 million for the year ended 2009. As of December 31, 2010, Solazyme had accumulated a deficit of $52.8 million. Solazyme has raised at least $125 million throughout its eight years of existence, from investors including Chevron's VC arm to Morgan Stanley to Richard Branson to food and personal product giant Unilever. Unilever wants to use algae to replace palm oil, because the harvesting of palm oil has led to deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia and has drawn the criticism of environmentalists. The first applications for Solzayme's algae oil are food, lotions and industrial chemicals. When I visited Solazyme's headquarters in  2009, I drank some of the company's prototype algae milk (tastes like soy or rice milk), and checked out some of their oils and lotions under development in their labs (see photo above) But ultimately, the company wants to scale up algae oil production to tackle the biofuel market: hence, why a company like Chevron is interested. The company is looking to commercialize its fuel technology in the 2013 time frame, with a production cost target of $60 to $80 per barrel. To get there, it will have to build a commercial-scale algae plant, which can cost over $100 million. Unlike some algae fuel companies that grow algae in open ponds, Solazyme engineers efficient algal strains and grows its designer algae in fermentation tanks without sunlight by feeding it sugar, then using existing industrial equipment to extract the oil. Solazyme is a leader in the algae fuel space, but competes with Sapphire Energy, Craig Venter's Synthetic Genomics, and a handful of other companies that are looking to scale up algae oil production. Dillon told me in an interview this week that even though Solazyme is commercializing industrial chemicals, its biofuels are still on track. According to its S-1, Solazyme has produced 500,000 liters of its algae oils between January 2010 and February 2011, which isn’t all that much, but the company will use funds from the IPO to scale up production. Its S-1 also says that back in December Solazyme singed a non-binding letter of intent with “one of the largest sugarcane processing companies in Brazil to form a joint venture and co-locate oil production at one of more of their sugarcane mills.” More on the S-1 in a later post. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

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EnergyHub Launches Direct to Consumer Home Energy Strategy

There’s a couple ways to sell a home energy management gadget or service: directly to the consumer/user, or via a utility. Many of the energy management startups — like EnergyHub — have focused on the latter, given it’s been a more reliable revenue stream. But on Sunday, at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, EnergyHub, for the first time, plans to start offering its home energy device directly to a consumer beta group, and one day soon plans to start selling its product directly to consumers. EnergyHub CEO Seth Frader-Thompson told me in an interview on Friday that EnergyHub will offer about 100 of its devices to consumers during the beta period for a discounted price (see more here for how to get involved with the beta and to attend the launch party in Austin) and will use the feedback to possibly develop the straight to consumer product that it will launch in the near future. Frader-Thompon declined to comment on how much the devices would cost both with and without a subsidy. It’s a new move for the startup, which has previously focused on utility trials and building automation partners. Late last year EnergyHub announced a deal with building control giant Honeywell, which is working with Baltimore Gas & Electric and 30 other utilities in the U.S. and Canada with its smart thermostat product, and expects to have the equivalent of 500 MW of load managed via its connected thermostats by 2011. EnergyHub also scored a smart grid trial with Consolidated Edison Company of New York (ConEd), through which it provided its energy dashboard, an energy web portal and other tools to a select group of ConEd's customers. Smaller trials include one at Travis Air Force Base. EnergyHub has been in the process of raising funds for its consumer launch, including a little over $12 million, and has already closed a bit over $7 million of that round. In early 2009, EnergyHub raised close to $3 million in its first round of funding. Recently the company also brought on a high-profile new independent director onto its board: EnerNOC President and Co-founder David Brewster. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): Green IT’s Q4 Winners: Wind Power, Solar Power, Smart Energy Report: Cleantech’s Third-Quarter Growing Pains Cleantech Was a Market Leader in Q4

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Coming Soon: PG&E's Latest Plan to Calm Smart Meter Foes

Smart grid companies take note: the battle over smart meters in California isn't going away any time soon and will likely get more complicated. It could even impact tech companies that have banked on the rollout of a massive amount of meters connected to wireless networks. The president of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), Michael Peevey, said Thursday that he has asked Pacific Gas and Electric – the largest utility in the state – to come up with alternatives to wireless smart meters within two weeks. The order came after months of intense protests by some PG&E customers over whether the radio frequency emitted from the meters makes people sick. Research has shown that RF emission from smart meters poses no known health risks and is in fact lower than what comes from cell phones and microwaves, but more studies on the long term effects have been called for. PG&E also has faced criticism over the accuracy of the smart meters and went through a public relations nightmare to convince its customers and regulators that its meters were working fine. A state-ordered report concluded as much last fall. What the utility is facing isn't unique as similar issues have cropped up in other smart meter rollouts around the country. If offering alternatives to wireless meters is deemed a good solution, then other utilities and state regulators might follow suit to quell concerns. The details of these alternative plans could affect tech developers who have counted on wireless meter deployment as part of their business plans. PG&E hasn't said what its alternative offerings might be, but providing wired meters is the likely option. Or it could stop installing smart meters all together and allow customers to keep their analog meters, which can't provide feedback on the energy use at a home or business. Managing a network with different technologies poses some headaches for the utility. Moreover, allowing analog and digital meters to co-exist makes it difficult for tech companies to promote products whose primary selling point is to allow consumers better monitor and control their energy use and costs. A variety of companies are peddling energy monitoring gadgets and software that would show electricity use throughout the day and point out energy uses that could be dialed back to save money. Some of these equipment developers are working with utilities as part of their smart meter deployment plans. And, of course, any drop in wireless smart meter installations also could means changes to manufacturing plans and sales forecast for wireless meter makers and their component suppliers, such as General Electric, Landis+Gyr and Silver Spring Networks. But such impact is hard to gauge without knowing specific changes of plans from utilities. PG&E already has replaced nearly eight million of its roughly 10 million old meters with wireless ones, said Greg Snapper, a PG&E spokesman. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): Report: Cleantech’s Third-Quarter Growing Pains New Opportunities in the Smart Grid Cleantech Was a Market Leader in Q4

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RidgeBlaster: Rooftop Wind Turbine Idea

There’s a lot of reasons why most homes in America do not have their own wind turbines — high costs, permitting issues, and just plain aesthetics. But there’s a wave of entrepreneurs trying to change that, including James Post, who has developed the SmartWind RidgeBlaster and submitted the concept to GE’s Ecomagination challenge. Watch the video (complete with music that would make the Techno Viking proud) below for a comprehensive description of the idea. It’s a wind turbine that stretches horizontally across the ridge of a gable roof, and has a diameter of 22 inches. The wind is meant to sweep up the roof through the turbines and the design is supposed to be able to utilize wind at any angle. According to GE’s materials on the concept, the customer would pay around $4,000 for a 1.8 kW, plus the cost of a 3 kW grid-tied inverter. Post tells GE that “this is the first serious attempt to massively introduce residential wind energy,” and he wants to get his technology exempt from building permits and zoning requirements because of its limited impact, compared to other residential wind turbines. The 7-foot long blades are made of metalized polypropylene. Post tells me via email that the RidgeBlaster is in the lab stage and the inverter is very close to a prototype (just waiting for some components). Post says once the company obtains funding it plans to build 25 units and place them under different conditions. The problem with small wind turbines is that they deliver just that: small amounts of power. Another company WindStream Technologies is looking to daisy-chain a whole bunch of modular wind turbines that can stack together like Legos and line sides of buildings, highways and rooftops. The company plans to launch its TurboMill meter-tall wind turbine, which is about the size of a satellite dish, in the first quarter of 2011. According to Pike Research the global small wind market — turbines of 100 kw and under — will expand to $412 million in revenue by 2013 from $203 million in 2009, delivering a compound annual growth rate of nearly 20 percent. During that same period, worldwide installed capacity of small wind turbines will reach 115 MW from about 49 MW in 2009, the study predicts. About two years ago, there seemed to be a turning point for the small wind market, at least in the U.S. The U.S. Congress passed federal tax credits of up to $4,000 for small-wind systems, a major win after a 23-year hiatus in small-wind incentives, and the technology also received support from cities like San Francisco and New York. Today there are more than a dozen small wind players, including some more established ones. Two-decade-old Southwest Windpower is one of those leading firms, and it makes traditionally-shaped, but small, wind turbines that range between $600 and $3,000 per turbine. Southwest has raised money from GE, Altira, Rockport Capital Partners, NGP Energy Technology Partners, and the venture capital arm of Chevron Technology Ventures. Another small wind firm that seems to be doing well is Mariah Windpower, a vertical axis wind turbine maker, which is backed by Noventi Ventures, Greenhouse Capital, BigSky Partners and the Sierra Angels. Founded in 2005, Mariah makes a slim, 30-foot-tall turbine with straight blades that spin vertically to produce up to 1.2 kilowatts of power. The company claims the vertical axis enables the turbine to spin more slowly – just two to three times the speed of the wind – making it quieter than the usual pinwheel-shaped turbines. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): Cleantech Was a Market Leader in Q4 Connected Consumer Tuned In to TVs in Q4 A Closer Look at Comcast’s NBC Universal Acquisition

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The Green Triple Play: Solar, Batteries, Electric Cars

A pilot project at a Ford factory that combines a small solar PV installation, a block of energy storage, and a handful of electric car batteries, has been turned on in Michigan — think about it as the triple play for clean power. The project is courtesy of Ford, solar company DTE Energy and energy storage startup Xtreme Power. The solar panels (just 500 kilowatts) were installed by DTE Enery at Ford’s Michigan assembly plant and the solar electricity will help power the factory, which will be manufacturing Ford’s new Focus Electric and other plug-in cars (see our video of the Ford Fit EV below). The more unusual part of the set up is Xtreme Power’s battery installation, which will provide 750-kilowatts of energy storage, and which will be combined with the company’s dynamic energy storage management system. Part of the energy storage system will also be used to test out how Ford can reuse electric vehicle batteries for grid energy storage. That’s one of the first times I’ve heard about a car company actually moving forward on testing this out. Xtreme Power is a 7-year-old company with a grand plan to building clumps of batteries connected to clean power projects, and then supply its management system to control the storage use. One of Xtreme’s biggest contracts is to build a 10-megawatt storage system meant to back up a 30-megawatt wind farm planned for the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The developer of the wind project, First Wind, recently received a $117 million Department of Energy loan guarantee, and Xtreme Power says it will be managing not only its battery, but the entire wind farm's output via its own smart grid network. Xtreme describes its PowerCell battery chemistry as a "chemical capacitor" that can beat lithium ion batteries in terms of energy storage, efficiency, cycle life and cost. The technology was born out of a 1990′s joint venture between Ford Aerospace and defense contractor Tracor that was shelved after its target market — California's zero-emissions vehicle fleet — collapsed in the wake of the state's decision to back off its ZEV mandate. Xtreme bought the technology in 2004 and put its first 500-kilowatt PowerCell in place at the South Pole Telescope, an extreme environment to be sure, in 2007. Since then, it has also tested a 1.5-megawatt PowerCell at another 30-megawatt wind project on the island of Maui, and has been working with the transmission hub project called Tres Amigas. Xtreme is already backed by over $40 million from investors including Sail Venture Partners and the state-run Texas Emerging Technology Fund. The company told us last year that it's been seeking financing for a $425 million plant that would roll out an eventual 2 gigawatts of batteries per year to be used to provide energy storage for the power grid. Xtreme is quieter on how much its battery tech costs, but Sam Jaffe, analyst at IDC Energy Insights, told us that Xtreme has been targeting around $500 per kilowatt-hour as a profitable price point for grid storage systems, though he expects the Hawaii project to exceed that, given its novelty. Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req'd): Green IT Overview, Q2 2010 Report: IT Opportunities in Electric Vehicle Management Why Google Android's Electric Vehicle Deal With GM Matters

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