Viridos develops genetically engineered microalgae and production systems to produce algae oil as feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable diesel (RD). The company says its engineered algae achieve seven times the oil productivity of wild algae and can enable roughly 70% lower carbon footprint for SAF and RD. Viridos grows algae in seawater-containing vessels to avoid using freshwater or arable land and to enable deployment in hot, dry locations. Its algae have high oil content and produce a plant oil compatible with existing biorefineries, which the company cites as important for scalability. Viridos plans to use new funding to advance R&D and drive algae oil productivity toward commercially deployable levels. The company is based in La Jolla, California. Synthetic Genomics develops and commercializes synthetic genomic technologies with applications across bioenergy, vaccines, food production and clean water. Founded by Dr. J. Craig Venter and Nobel Laureate Hamilton Smith and based in La Jolla, CA, the company originally focused on bioenergy. It has since extended its interests to food production, clean water and vaccine development. One of its main business programs is an R&D alliance with Exxon Mobil Research and Engineering Group to find and optimize algae to efficiently produce biological crude oil replacements. That program utilizes both synthetic genome techniques and more traditional metabolic engineering techniques. The company received an undisclosed equity investment from Life Technologies.

Total raised

$25M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Mar 2023