Gevo, Amyris, Solazyme take lead in early voting for 30 Hottest Companies in Renewable Chemicals and Biomaterials

IPO-heavy group takes lead in early voting for 30 Hottest Companies in Renewable Chemicals, with pure-play companies gathering less momentum than expected.

In Florida, Biofuels Digest announced that Gevo had taken the initial lead in subscriber voting for the 30 Hottest Companies in Renewable Chemicals and Biomaterials, just ahead of Amyris and Solazyme. All three companies have completed highly successful IPOs in the past 12 months.

The rankings, which focus on the production of chemicals, organic acids, plastics, fragrances, food products and other materials form biomass, are based upon voting by Biofuels Digest subscribers, member of the Digest Online Community, and a panel of invited international selectors. Voting will conclude July 20, 1011, and the rankings will be published as part of the July 27 Biofuels Digest anniversary issue.

Filling out the top 10 in the initial two weeks of voting are: Cargill (NatureWorks), Dupont, Novozymes, Dupont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol, Genencor, Codexis and POET.

The Top 30 (in initial voting) are:

Gevo
Amyris
Solazyme
Cargill
Dupont
Novozymes
Dupont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol
Genencor
Codexis
POET

LS9
Dow Chemical
DSM
Ceres
Cobalt Technologies
ZeaChem
Virent Energy Systems
Genomatica
Chevron
Mascoma

Coskata
OPX Biotechnologies
UOP (Honeywell’s UOP)
Avantium
Waste Management
Bluefire Renewables
Bioamber
Petrobras
KiOR
Borregaard

Among surprises to date, the relatively poor showing of pure-play renewable chemicals companies, with only Genomatica, Avantium, and Bioamber making the top 30. Pure-plays such as Elevance, Metabolix, Myriant, Verdezyne and Segetis are in the top 50, but just outside the range of the rankings, so far.

IPOs appear to have weighed heavily on the minds of voters so far, with the top 3 positions, 4 of the top 10, and 6 of the top 30 featuring companies that have filed for or completed IPOs in the 2010-11 cleantech IPO bull market. Strategic partners such as Ceres, Codexis, Dupont, Genencor, Dow, DSM, Chevron, UOP, Waste Management, and Petrobras have polled strongly in early voting.

Voting extends to members of the Digest’s online community

Today, voting opens for the members of the Digest’s Online Community. Subscribers, Community members, and invited selectors will each count as one-third of the overall voting.

In voting, subscribers said that credibility (real and proven technology, vs claim and hype), was overwhelmingly the most important quality as they ranked companies. Uniqueness – (novel technologies, vs “me-too”) was the second most important factor, Allies – (all the right strategic partners, vs “go it alone”) was third, Scale (Big-Scale projects addressing urgent needs, vs small-scale “nice to have”) was fourth, and Visibility (widely known, vs unknown, technologies and players) was the least important criterion.

Voting is limited to subscribers, members of the online Community, and invited selectors – to become a Digest subscriber, click here.