Weekly News Roundup

The blog apologizes for the lack of weekly news roundup in the past two weeks. Unfortunately, the blog is at the second-bottom of the chain between my day job at the magazine and night work at school. My friends and family will tell you my personal life is at the very bottom (violin starts playing now...)

I just finished my article on Japanese chemical companies and their renewable chemical strategies (this was really a tough one but thanks to Lux Research and Jim Lunt for providing some input, and Mitsubishi Chemical, Mitsui and Teijin for participating). The article is going to be published on October 24.

In the meantime, there were a lot (and I mean a lot!) of press announcements that came out this week. We will post a separate one on biofuels as well as about this new company called Renmatix, which had a press meeting and live webcast held in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.

For now, here are our latest news roundup:

Plaxica bags £5m financing

UK-based bioplastic producer Plaxica has raised £5m ($7.8m) in equity funding from Imperial Innovations, Invesco Perpetual and NESTA Investments. Plaxica is said to be developing next generation polylactic acid (PLA) polymers and platform chemicals.

Siluria raises $20m financing
Siluria raised $20m for its series B financing led by UK-based Wellcome Trust and joining Siluria investors Alloy Ventures, ARCH Venture Parners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Altitude Life Science Ventures, Lux Capital and Presidio Ventures. Siluria uses waste methane gas as feedstock to produce fuels and chemicals.

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