Gevo pulls ahead in #1 position in 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy with 125 hours of voting remaining; Cargill into top 10; Novozymes, Genecor inch into top 6

In Digestville, Gevo stretched its lead over Solazyme from the top of the pack as the 125-hour mark until the end of voting for the 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy.

Solazyme, Amyris, DDCE, Novozymes, Genencor, POET, LS9, Codexis and Cargill  trailed Gevo in the top 10 after the tenth day of subscriber balloting for the 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy. Voters have submitted more than 56,000 total votes to date in the polling.

Sapphire Energy, along with BP Biofuels, Shell, Petrobras, OriginOil, Coskata, Abengoa Energy, Algenol, Mascoma and Chevron formed the second 10.

Among those just outside the top 20 included Cobalt Technologies, Verenium, PetroAlgae, Ceres, and ExxonMobil.

Balloting will be open to the registered subscribers of the Biofuels Digest, Geothermal Digest and Renewable Chemicals Digest e-newsletters, through Tuesday November 30th at 5pm EST, as well as a panel of invited international selectors.

“The enzyme companies are on the march, with Novozymes up to #5 and Genencor now at #6,” commented Biofuels Digest editor and publisher Jim Lane. “But with five days of subscriber voting to go, and all the invited international selector ballots yet to be opened, its still a wide open race. Algae companies have been a bit down compared to last year, but the fermentation technologies are stronger than ever. Will Gevo do as well with the invited international selectors?”

Results published today include only ballots submitted by Digest subscribers. Ballots from the invited international selectors, which make up half of the overall scoring, are now being received and will also finalize on November 30th. The invited selectors ballots generally feature a broader range of companies in terms of geographies and processing technologies.

All selectors are able to take advantage of what has been described as the “most comprehensive, free data resource in bioenergy,” the 380-page “Selectors Data Book” which includes company profiles, surveys and industry data. This is the third year that the Digest has published its annual 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy rankings.