According to a new SEC filing, Blue Marble Energy attracted another $1.3 million investment — this time in a series A-1 convertible note deal — to create carbon neutral alternatives to petrochemicals.
Blue Marble’s biochemicals can be used to manufacture everything from food and perfume, to plastics, adhesives and synthetic textiles. The company also produces renewable energy from biomass.
One of the company’s best known products is its perfume line, EOS, made partly with spent beer brewery grain from Freemont Brewing in conjunction with the hand-made fragrance retailers Sweet Anthem.
According to the company’s website:
“[Blue Marble]’s process uses organic material (biomass) including: food by-products, yard clippings, spent brewery grain, algae, milfoil, corn silage, wood chips, and more.
The company’s proprietary AGATE (Acid, Gas, and Ammonia Targeted Extraction) polyculture fermentation technology…uses non-genetically modified bacteria to produce target compounds. [This process] links several kinds of bacteria in a production chain to breakdown plant material. The…bacteria symbiotically works to produce a broad portfolio of compounds.”
In late 2009, the Seattle clean tech company struck a partnership with the Odessa Public Development Authority (OPDA) to construct and run Washington state’s first specialty biochemical biorefinery. The joint project attracted a $2 million award from Washington State’s Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB). The plant is now moving out of its pilot phase towards a higher-volume, commercial phase.
In April 2009, the company raised its series A investment of $2 million from an entrepreneur involved in bottling and distributing sodas in Africa, Rajiv Shah who holds a seat on Blue Marble’s board.