Cobalt Technologies Raises $20 Million
GreenTech
Cobalt Technologies Raises $20 Million To Make Plant-Based Jet Fuel And Paint
By Lora Kolodny
Published: May 02, 2011
Cobalt Technologies, a cleantech startup in Mountain View that develops and makes biobutanol, closed a $20 million series D funding round, the company revealed today. The investment arm of Parsons & Whittemore (the Whittemore Collection) led the round, joined by all of Cobalt’s earlier venture backers: Pinnacle Ventures, Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund, VantagePoint Capital Partners, Life Sciences Partners (LSP), @Ventures, Harris & Harris and Burrill and Company.
Primarily, Cobalt Technologies turns non-food crops into “n-butanol,” which is used to make a variety of paints and coatings, as well as renewable chemicals used to make jet fuel.
The U.S. Department of Energy defines biobutanol as: "...an alcohol that can be produced through processing of domestically grown crops, such as corn and sugar beets, and other biomass, such as fast-growing grasses and agricultural waste products." Biobutanol generally has greater energy density than ethanol.