50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy TRENDS: Algae-oriented companies

Fuels, renewable oils and chemicals companies utilizing algae in their production process took a hit this year in the Hot 50 – last year, Solazyme, Sapphire Energy, PetroAlgae, Aurora Biofuels, OriginOil and Solix, Exxon and Synthetic Genomics made the rankings with an average placement of #23.

This year, Aurora dropped out (primarily the result of a name and position change, which may have confused the market in the short term) and Solix also fell below the top 50 threshold.Exxon, Synthetic genomics, Petro ALgae, Sapphire Energy and Solazyme all slipped, although Sapphire and Solazyme slipped less than others and both made the the top 10.

Other news – the companies that did stick around, moved down on average, recording an average place of #25. But there are other signs that algae’s image may have taken a short-term hit – even if preparing for a more profound long-term future as a biofuels and chemicals platform – Solazyme has decidedly downplayed its connection with algae, preferring to cast itself as a renewable oils company that happens to use heterotrophic algae in its technology. Their strategy enabled them to defy gravity in so many ways – coming within a whisker of becoming the first company to be ranked #1 in the world two years in a row.