OriginOil, Gevo, Terrabon open big leads in Transformative Technologies 2011 3rd round

In first day voting in round three of Transformative Technologies 2011, tournament Cinderella OriginOil continued its remarkable run, opening up a 59-41 lead over Codexis. The 11th seeded company blew past Genencor and Sapphire Energy to date in the tough Western Regional, and may well be en route to a date with destiny in the Western Regional final against Solazyme, which opened up a 54-46 lead over Cobalt.

Among other surprises in first day voting,Gevo opened up a huge 57-43 lead of POET, and Terrabon did the same in their duel with Virent, while LS9 and Enerkem battled to a 50-50 tie in voting so far. 7th seeded Joile has opened up a narrow lead, 51-49, over 3rd seed Mascoma, in the Eastern Regional.

Winner sin this round advance to the Elite Eight, with showdowns next week leading to the Final Four.

“Impressive totals by a number of companies,” commented Digest editor Jim Lane, “but it is first day voting, and no one should be complacent yet, not by a long stretch.”

Here are the vote totals (expressed in percentages), so far:

International Regional
Amyris 51 vs Novozymes 49
LS9 50 vs Enerkem 50

Eastern Regional
INEOS Bio 46 vs Qteros 54
Mascoma 49 vs Joule 51

Central Regional
Gevo 57 vs POET 43
Terrabon 57 vs Virent 43

Western Regional
Solazyme 54 vs Cobalt 46
OriginOil 59 vs Codexis 41

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Transformative Technologies is a subscriber-voted, “knock-out” tournament which measures the impact of the competitor’s technologies on the bioenergy landscape. More than 400 pages of data on all the competitors (and more) is available here – also, individual match-ups include links to the most recent profiles submitted by companies for the 2011-12 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy, which is coming up for voting in the 4th quarter of 2011.

The complete tournament bracket, with the most up to date scoring, is available for download here.