Solazyme ranked #1 in “50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy” for 2011-12

Solazyme edges Amyris, Gevo in Hot 50 for 2011-12, as hot IPOs dominate, gasification advances.

In Florida, Biofuels Digest announced that Renewable oils developer Solazyme took the #1 spot in the 2011-12 “50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy” rankings.

Amyris (#2), Gevo (#3), POET (#4), LS9 (#5), Novozymes (#6), Enerkem (#7), LanzaTech (#8), Honeywell’s UOP (#9), and ZeaChem (#10) round out the top 10.

Ranked #11 through #20 are Codexis, Abengoa Bioenergy, KiOR, Virent, Sapphire Energy, Ceres, Coskata, Dupont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol, Terrabon and Mascoma.

The rankings, which recognize innovation and achievement in bioenergy development, are based 60 percent on votes from a 100-member College of international selectors, and 40 percent on votes from subscribers of Biofuels Digest and Renewable Chemicals Digest. Overall, more than 1,000 companies were eligible in the rankings and 304 companies received votes in the poll, and more than 130,000 individual company ratings were completed by voters.

“This year, gasification-oriented companies did very well, cellulosic ethanol stepped back,” said Biofuels Digest editor and publisher Jim Lane. “Companies that completed their IPOs this year generally advanced strongly. Also, renewable chemicals is becoming more important. We also saw that companies in the pre-IPO queue and accompanying “quiet period”, going through re-branding or acquisition, suffered in the polls from the reduced visibility.”

Among the Hot 50, 37 were US-based companies and 13 were from other countries. 15 are active in cellulosic ethanol development (same as last year), six utilize algae or cyanobacteria in their energy solutions (up from five last year), and 16 are producing “drop-in” renewable biofuels such as biobutanol, renewable diesel, green gasoline and renewable jet fuel (same as last year). Two companies focused on renewable chemicals only in their first commercial plants, Genomatica, and Elevance, made the rankings for the first time.

Shell, ranked #32 in its own right, is an investor in #11 Codexis, #14 Virent, and has a JV with Cosan (#39). BP ranked #24, and is an investor in #28 Qteros and #47 OPX. Waste Management, ranked #26, is an investor in #7 Enerkem and #19 Terrabon. Dupont is the parent of #18 Dupont Celluosic Ethanol, and the parent of #30-ranked Genencor.

New companies in the list this year are: Genomatica (#31), Chemtex (#34), Elevance Renewable Sciences (#36), HCL Clean Tech (#40), Mendel Biotechnologies (#46), OPX Biotechnologies (#47) and Renmatix (#49).

The 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy for 2011-12 are:

1       Solazyme

2       Amyris

3       Gevo

4       POET

5       LS9

6       Novozymes

7       Enerkem

8       LanzaTech

9       Honeywell’s UOP

10     ZeaChem

11     Codexis

12     Abengoa Bioenergy

13     KiOR

14     Virent Energy Systems

15     Sapphire Energy

16     Ceres

17     Coskata

18     DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol

19     Terrabon

20     Mascoma

21     Cobalt Technologies

22     Petrobras

23     Joule Unlimited

24     BP Biofuels

25     Neste Oil

26     Waste Management

27     Rentech

28     Qteros

29     INEOS Bio

30     Genencor

31     Genomatica

32     Shell

33     Synthetic Genomics

34     Chemtex

35     Algenol

36     Elevance Renewable Sciences

37     OriginOil

38     SG Biofuels

39     Cosan

40     HCL CleanTech

41     Fulcrum Bioenergy

42     Cargill

43     Chevron

44     Bluefire Renewables

45     Dynamic Fuels

46     Mendel

47     OPX Biotechnologies

48     Inbicon

49     Renmatix

50     Monsanto