LanzaTech Receives $18 Million in Series B Funding By Chinese Investors

Based in New Zealand, LanzaTech is a clean tech company that has a proprietary biological solution to generate bacteria that can dissolve industrial waste, thus reducing the environmental damage that industrial pollution can cause. The company announced today that it has received $18 million in series B funding, which was led by several Chinese VC firms. The primary investor leading this funding round is Qiming Ventures.

LanzaTech has proven its unique technology in 2007, when it has completed it series A funding and the company has provided a great investment opportunity for Chinese investors because of its powerful technology and the growing market for clean technology. Furthermore, as China continues to industrialize and begins to adopt Western standards for pollution, the technology that LanzaTech has developed can be very beneficial for Chinese industry.

According to the founder and managing director of Qiming Ventures, Gary Reischel; China can have a great opportunity with LanzaTech because this technology can allow for fuel to be produced without having to worry about pollution in the environment where the refineries and other heavy industry is located. The uniqueness of this technology is that it can reduce industrial waste gasses, reducing the level of GHG emissions in the atmosphere, therefore allowing China to maintain its industrial productivity.

Qiming Ventures is not the only investor taking advantage of this investment opportunity, however. Qiming was also joined by other investment firms including Soft Bank China Venture Capital, Khosla Ventures from the US, and others who participated in the company’s series A funding round.

By 2011, LanzaTech plans to have a pre-commercial plant to produce bacteria based ethanol and plans to quickly scale its plant to commercial status and start to produce over 200 million liters of ethanol per year.

LanzaTech has its corporate headquarters in Auckland, New Zealand and has developed a unique platform to develop a liquid biofuel that can be used in practically any kind of industry. LanzaTech currently has a pilot plant that can produce ethanol from bacteria and can provide this biofuel to heavy industry at a much lower cost than the conventional fossil fuels that are primarily used by heavy industry today.

Carbon monoxide is one of the worst gasses released by heavy industry and LanzaTech has turned this destructive waste gas into a resource and can turn it around by using bacteria to convert it into synagas. Synagas is gas that is created by using bio mass to break down any carbon producing gas from burning fossil fuels or even wood. The gas is then cooled and is given to the patented microbes created by LanzaTech and the microbes consume this waste gas. As the microbes consume the gas, their energy produces a clean burning liquid fuel that is clean and environmentally friendly.

LanzaTech estimates that it will be able to produce over 120 billion liters of ethanol using steel mill exhaust in the first year.