New Zealand’s LanzaTech Raises $18M Series B
LanzaTech, a New Zealand-based developer of second generation biofuel, has raised $18 million as part of a Series B funding round led Qiming Ventures, a Chinese cleantech-focused venture capital fund.
Softbank China Venture Capital and two returning investors, Khosla Ventures and New Zealand based K1W1, also participated in the funding.
LanzaTech produces bacteria that convert industrial waste gases into fuels and chemicals. LanzaTech’s recently formed partnership with Baosteel, China’s largest steel and iron conglomerate, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) to commercialize its technologies for producing ethanol from steel mill off gases, reports PeHUB.
In a prepared statement Dr Sean Simpson, co founder of LanzaTech, said:
We plan to have a pre-commercial plant operational in 2011 with plans to quickly scale to a commercial facility producing over 200 million liters of ethanol per year,” Dr Simpson says. “The funding will also see expansion of the company’s focus to include the use of CO2 as a feedstock gas.