the rest is “based on us delivering milestones.” Once the plant is complete, GreenFuel will then be eligible to receive royalties tied to what the farm produces, he says.
Whatever the financial terms with Aurantia, it isn’t enough to fuel GreenFuel—which now has some 40 employees—at least in the short term. In May, the firm announced it had received $13.9 million in funding from existing investors that included Polaris Venture Partners, Access Private Equity, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson under an extension of its Series B round. But Upfill-Brown, a former Dow Chemical executive who joined the firm in July, says the company still needs to close a Series C financing round that he had hoped would have been done already. (Indeed, board chairman Bob Metcalfe of Polaris, then functioning as interim CEO, told us in June he had two potential term sheets on the table). Upfill-Brown says all existing investors are committed to the new round, but that the company is looking for a new group to lead it. “We’re putting the numbers together, and within a month or so we should be out trying to do that,” he says.
While there are still challenges ahead, both technically and in completing the financing, Upfill-Brown says he likes GreenFuel’s position. “We’ve got a number of deals in the works, but nothing really to talk about yet,” he says, echoing hints dropped in June by Metcalfe. The bigger challenge, he says, will be to avoid taking on too much too soon. Says he, “I think our focus is to make sure a couple of these really work.”
Author: Robert Buderi
Bob is Xconomy's founder and chairman. He is one of the country's foremost journalists covering business and technology. As a noted author and magazine editor, he is a sought-after commentator on innovation and global competitiveness. Before taking his most recent position as a research fellow in MIT's Center for International Studies, Bob served as Editor in Chief of MIT's Technology Review, then a 10-times-a-year publication with a circulation of 315,000. Bob led the magazine to numerous editorial and design awards and oversaw its expansion into three foreign editions, electronic newsletters, and highly successful conferences. As BusinessWeek's technology editor, he shared in the 1992 National Magazine Award for The Quality Imperative.
Bob is the author of four books about technology and innovation. Naval Innovation for the 21st Century (2013) is a post-Cold War account of the Office of Naval Research. Guanxi (2006) focuses on Microsoft's Beijing research lab as a metaphor for global competitiveness. Engines of Tomorrow (2000) describes the evolution of corporate research. The Invention That Changed the World (1996) covered a secret lab at MIT during WWII. Bob served on the Council on Competitiveness-sponsored National Innovation Initiative and is an advisor to the Draper Prize Nominating Committee. He has been a regular guest of CNBC's Strategy Session and has spoken about innovation at many venues, including the Business Council, Amazon, eBay, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.
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