Sapphire Energy, a US-based company that creates fuel out of algae, has raised an undisclosed amount from New York-listed crops company Monsanto.
Monsanto has also agreed to use Sapphire’s algae-based research to discover genes that could be applied to agriculture, particularly in the field of yield and stress.
For Sapphire, this collaboration will also help commercialise algae as a renewable energy crop by finding genes to boost growth.
Sapphire Energy makes bio-energy, which involves applying synthetic biology to produce replacement fuels, such as gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, from algae. Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s chief technology officer, said: "We face a common goal in looking for ways to improve upon an organism’s ability to achieve greater productivity under optimal and sub-optimal environmental conditions. Together with Sapphire, we can identify genes affecting such traits in algae that might also be applied to corn, cotton, soybeans and other crops."
The two firms have been working together for reportedly about a year. Robert Shapiro, Monsanto’s former chief executive, joined Sapphire’s board of directors in April.
In December 2009, Sapphire was awarded nearly $104.5m as part of US President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Biorefinery Assistance Program, authorized through the 2008 Farm Bill.
In September 2008, Sapphire closed its series B round to take its then total funding to "substantially more than $100m" from Wellcome Trust, a quasi-corporate venturing group run by the UK’s largest charity, and venture capital firms Arch Venture Partners, Venrock and Cascade Investment, an investment holding company owned by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.