Oil group Valero Energy has made its second corporate venturing investment of the year by joining a consortium investing C$59m ($60m) in Enerkem, a US-based waste-to-biofuels and chemicals company.
Valero joins existing strategic investor Waste Management, a US-listed garbage collection company, and venture capital firms Rho Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures and Cycle Capital, which have all invested in the latest equity round.
Valero, which in January invested in biofuels developer Qteros, has invested in 10 ethanol plants throughout the Midwest of the US and said it would consider commercial opportunities with Enerkem.
Vincent Chornet, executive president of Enerkem, said: "With Valero joining Waste Management as a strategic investor Enerkem becomes one of the very few renewable products companies that is aligned with industry leaders from both upstream and downstream parts of the business."
Tim Cesarek, managing director of the organic growth group at Waste Management, said: "We are broadening our portfolio of conversion technologies in the waste-to-biofuels market, which is key to developing new, higher value-added end markets for materials."
In May last year, Canada-based power producer Alberta Energy invested C$3.35m in Enerkem.
Enerkem had previously raised C$53.8m from Waste Management, Rho Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures, BDR Capital and Cycle Capital.
Investment bank Credit Suisse advised Enerkem on the latest round.
The round followed $130m in financial support from the US Department of Agriculture and Department of Energy for a plant in Mississippi, America, expected to break ground later this year. Construction is already underway on a similar 36 million litre per year waste-to-biofuels facility in Alberta, Canada, the company’s second commercial facility.