Synthetic Genomics turns to palm oil with $8M investment
Craig Venter is famous for discovering and modifying microorganisms, but his biofuels company, Synthetic Genomics, plans to take the research a step further by sequencing the genome of the oil palm plant.
The company just raised $8 million from Genting Group, a Malaysian conglomerate, according to national newspaper The Star (credit to Earth2Tech for digging this up). Synthetic Genomics already had a partnership with Genting to work on palm oil, which is a major export in Malaysia. The two hope to improve the palm’s ability to produce oil, thus creating more fuel.
Another feedstock plant that SGI plans to work on is jatropha, a berry-producing plant that is rapidly growing in popularity.
It’s hard to tell how much of a stake Genting now has in Synthetic Genomics, but it’s likely not much. After raising money last year, the company was reportedly valued at about $300 million. Even if that valuation has not risen at all, Genting controls less than three percent of Venter’s outfit.Still, this partnership could lead to some interesting results.
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Tags: co:Synthetic-Genomics, deal, inv:genting group, people:Craig-Venter
Chris Morrison writes about cleantech and environmental issues for VentureBeat, with occasional forays into gaming and semantic technology. He got his start writing about tech for Business 2.0 magazine, but quickly realized new media was the ticket when that institution closed its doors in 2007. Chris has also covered public equities and regulatory issues. He originally hails from southern Virginia, graduated from Evergreen State College in Washington, and now lives in San Francisco.