Amyris secures $42.25M financing, begins Biofene production in Brazil

27 December 2012

Renewable chemicals and fuels company Amyris, Inc. has completed a $42.25 million private placement of its common stock. In addition, Amyris announced its purpose-built industrial fermentation facility in Brazil has successfully begun production of Biofene, Amyris’s brand of renewable farnesene.

The company sold 14,177,849 shares of common stock in a private placement to existing Amyris investors. The transaction included $37.25 million in cash proceeds and the conversion by Total Gas & Power USA, SAS of $5 million from an outstanding senior unsecured convertible promissory note.

We are encouraged by the continued, strong commitment from our major investors, particularly as we start up our new industrial fermentation facility for the production of our renewable hydrocarbons in Brazil. Our own farnesene plant at Paraiso has been successfully commissioned, with initial farnesene production underway. We anticipate sales from this facility during the first quarter of 2013.

—John Melo, Amyris President & CEO

Amyris uses its industrial synthetic biology platform to convert plant sugars into a variety of hydrocarbon molecules. Amyris’s initial portfolio of commercial products is based on Biofene, Amyris's brand of renewable farnesene, a long-chain hydrocarbon.