LS9, Inc. Raises $15M

LS9, Inc., the Renewable Petroleum Company(TM), has closed its second round of funding with $15 million in new investments.

Lightspeed Venture Partners led the financing, with additional contributions from existing investors Flagship Ventures and Khosla Ventures.

The funding will support the company’s rapid commercialization of DesignerBiofuels(TM) products.

Said Peter Nieh, General Partner of Lightspeed Venture Partners, “LS9 is the clear market leader for renewable production of hydrocarbons. We are very impressed by their differentiated technology, strong intellectual property, and compelling economics.”

LS9 President Robert Walsh said, “Building upon two years of R&D success, this financing will allow us to continue to attract top talent, begin construction of a pilot facility, commercialize on a massive scale and bring DesignerBiofuels(TM) products to market in the next two or three years.”

LS9 DesignerBiofuels(TM) products are a family of fuels produced by microbes that have been specially engineered via recently developed methods of industrial synthetic biology. Starting from raw materials that are natural sources of sugar such as sugar cane and cellulosic biomass, the company believes the renewable fuels stand to fundamentally change the biofuels landscape and set the stage for widespread product adoption and petroleum displacement. LS9 hydrocarbon biofuels have higher energetic content than ethanol or butanol and have fuel properties that are essentially indistinguishable from those of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.