Transformative Technologies 2011: Solazyme, Gevo, Amyris, Coskata nab top seeds

“Transformative Technologies 2011” kicks off with 1st-round voting. Who’s the Best?

This week: Goliath vs Goliath, David vs Goliath, “8 vs 9” contests to watch, plus a SynthBio blow-out with Sapphire Energy, Mendel, Synthetic Genomics and Ceres in the mix.

In Florida, Amyris, Gevo, Solazyme and Coskata landed the top four seeds in the 2011 Transformative Technologies tournament, which kicks off today with 32 first-round clashes featuring the 64 most transformative technologies in renewable chemicals and fuels.

Biofuels Digest subscribers are invited to vote here for the technologies they believe to be the most transformative of the year. Voting continues for the first round, through this Friday, August 19th at 5pm ET. Winners of the 32 first-round contests will advanced to second round match-ups, with second-round voting kicking off at 9am ET on August 22.

Amyris took the first seed in the international regional, with LS9, Raizen and LanzaTech filling out the top four seeds.

Solazyme took the top seed in the West Regional, with Codexis, Sapphire Energy and Cobalt Technologies filling out the top four in the West line-up.

Gevo took the top seed in the Central Regional, with Virent, ZeaChem, and POET filling out the top four Central region seeds.

As reported last week, Coskata took the top seed in the East Regional, with KiOR, Mascoma and Qteros filling out the top four.

“Now its up to the readers to sort out perception from reality,” commented Biofuels Digest editor Jim Lane. “This competition is not about what a well-placed investor would like you to think. It’s about what you think – your chance to have a say about the technologies.  Some high-flyers may well fall. Deserving underdogs? You can advance them.”

Key Match-ups this week to watch

Goliath vs Goliath
Waste Management vs Dow Chemical
Raizen vs Abengoa Energy

Hot technologies to sort out
LanzaTech vs Aurora Algae
Enerkem vs Syngenta
ZeaChem vs Ensyn

David vs Goliath
Algenol vs Monsanto
Joule Unlimited vs Dupont Dansico Cellulosic Ethanol

Synth Bio blow-out
Ceres vs Synthetic Genomics
Sapphire Energy vs Mendel Biotechnologies

Key #8 vs #9 match-ups
Neste Oil vs DSM
INEOS Bio vs Dynamic Fuels

Voting

Open to all Biofuels Digest subscribers. Voting links are in the Biofuels Digest daily newsletter. To subscribe (free), visit here.

Download the bracket

Download the complete (full size) bracket

The complete bracket is available for download here – follow the tournament all the way to the finals.

Voting Rules
One vote per person. Subscribers only. Organizations or individuals found engaging in “vote spamming” (multiple, serial votes from a single computer, or distributing links to non-subscribers with the intent of enabling non-subscribers to vote) will have their votes cancelled, and organizations competing in Transformative Technologies are subject to disqualification. Votes will be tallied by Biofuels Digest, whose decisions are final.

The Complete Brackets are here.