President Obama and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak applauded a business deal in Malaysia yesterday, as the Malaysian agricultural conglomerate Sime Darby Berhad agreed to lead a $48 million investment in Verdezyne, the Carlsbad, CA-based industrial biotech.
The deal is expected to make Sime Darby the single largest investor in Verdezyne, which has committed itself to building its first commercial plant in Malaysia. The company, founded in 2005, genetically engineers various strains of yeast to produce key industrial chemicals like adipic acid and dodecanedioic acid (DDDA) that are currently made from petroleum-based intermediates.
The engineered yeast consumes sustainable raw material, such as palm oil, in fermentation tanks, to produce the valuable chemicals, which are used to make nylon, resins, lubricants, and other products. Sime Darby said it has formed a new business unit, Sime Darby Renewables, to work with Verdezyne to convert palm oil waste and related palm-based commodities into higher-value products.
The size of Sime Darby’s investment in Verdezyne was not disclosed in statements issued yesterday from Verdezyne and Sime Darby. However, the Green Chemical Blog reported that Sime Darby would invest $30 million to acquire a 30 percent stake in Verdezyne.
Existing investors BP Alternative Energy, Royal DSM, OVP Venture Partners, and Monitor Ventures joined
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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