US-based renewable chemicals producer Rivertop Renewables has secured $26m in equity funding from backers including US-based agribusiness Cargill and Warburg Pincus-backed venture capital firm First Green Partners.
The round also featured existing investors which were undislosed but could potentially include Sustainable Resource Ventures, Finney Capital, Investors’ Circle and Cultivian Ventures, the letter of which provided $1.5m in bridge funding in November 2011.
SEC filings indicate that prior to the latest round Rivertop had raised $3.6m in equity funding and $7.2m in debt.
Rivertop plans to use the new funds to begin commercial production of its chemicals, particularly salts of glucaric acid, which will be utilised in the consumer product and industrial markets. It also intends to hire another 20 employees in the next year, which would effectively double its workforce.
“Cargill’s investment in Rivertop is strategic given the compatibility of our expertise and resources in multiple feedstocks, worldwide facilities and access to key industries,” said Brian Silvey, Cargill’s vice president of corn milling for North America.
As such the firm invested directly rather than through its former corporate venturing unit, Black River (formerly-known as Cargill Ventures), which now has the “vast majority of lp money is institutional rather than Cargill,” accoridng to a senior managing director at the firm.
The Black River director added that the Cargill investment in Rivertop was “probably more of a one-off versus the launch of a concerted strategy to get back into corporate venturing”.