Weekly News Roundup

Big news this week is DuPont's acquisition of Danisco for $6.3bn. We will analyze more about the implication of this acquisition in another post in terms of DuPont expanding its industrial biotechnology (and biofuels) portfolio. Meanwhile, last week saw a slew of  more biofuel news as you can see in this week's roundup:

Qteros joins Praj and bags $22m

Cellulosic ethanol developer Qteros partnered with Praj Industries to accelerate commercialization of low-cost cellulosic ethanol. The companies plan to retrofit Praj's existing pilot plant in Pune, India with Qteros' technology plantform, which will become the foundation for accelerated production scaling. In another news, Qteros closed a $22m series C financing, which is expected to find the company's development and commercialization plans.

Virent and HCL gets grant

Virent Energy Systems and HCL Clean Tech have been awarded a $900,000 grant from BIRD Energy, a program for US-Israel joint renewable energy development. The project combines HCL's lignocellulosic conversion technologies with Virent's Bioforming technology that converts plant sugars into hydrocarbon molecules.

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