PetroAlgae, a company claiming that it has found a cheap way to convert algae into fuel — a goal that formidable competitors like Sapphire Energy and Solazyme are also chasing — just filed for a $200 million IPO
despite a weak public market for green companies. Early signs suggest
that this move could do more harm than good to the burgeoning algae
industry.
Many analysts already agree PetroAlgae has jumped the gun. The company doesn’t have any revenue (actually zero) — but that’s not the biggest concern. Most of the cleantech companies filing to go public don’t have any plans to escape the red anytime soon. Rather, the general consensus is that the algae market simply isn’t mature enough yet.
There are literally hundreds of companies chasing the dream of using algae in some way to produce car and jet fuels, not to mention chemicals for consumer products. But only a small handful have made any money to speak of, including Solazyme, Sapphire, Synthetic Genomics and Solix. PetroAlgae is far from the top of its field. Right now, it’s little more than a lofty claim that it can churn out algae-based fuel that’s competitive with crude oil at $20 a barrel.
To read the full, original article click on this link: PetroAlgae chances weak green IPO market with $200M filing | VentureBeat
Author: Camille Ricketts
