While the physical doors of this month’s Electronic Entertainment Expo were only open to professionals from the video gaming world, E3 video coverage by YouTube, Viacom and G4TV.com successfully brought the biggest announcements and demos to online audiences, with hundreds of thousands of gaming fans tuning in.
Codexis, a Redwood City, Calif.-based developer of evolved biocatalysts for drug and biofuel production debuted on the Nasdaq this morning at the low end of its proposed price range: just $13 per share for a raise of $78 million.
Clean technology investment has kept up its recession-beating pace so far this year. Will the front-running startups in the field find an exit? The cleantech sector shows continuing momentum — and that’s just what longtime VC investors need.
The EPA has awarded $2.38 million under the Small Business Innovative Research program, including four awards (under the biofuels and vehicle emissions category) for R&D firms working on tech related to biofuels.
Emerging from its haunts as a bicycle tech developer, Fallbrook Technologies this week has joined Tesla Motors and Codexis as the latest in a spate of greentech ventures filing initial public offerings. Like Tesla, it’s also the latest company to attempt to go public with no profits. The company — which has raised some $55 million in financing since it formed in 2000 — aims to raise $50 million through the planned IPO.
Based in San Diego, Calif., Fallbrook has charted an ambitious course for itself, aiming to parlay its business providing continuously variable transmission tech for bicycles into an entry point for the nascent electric vehicle and small wind turbine market. Here’s the company’s game plan for how to make that happen, and other tidbits drawn from the S-1.
Read More about Fallbrook’s IPO: The Bicycle Tech Maker Looks to Electric Vehicles
One more look back at 2009 — the $371 million IPO of lithium battery maker A123Systems (s AONE) back in late September, was the largest of last year, according to a report from Dow Jones VentureSource. Investors definitely had confidence in the company on September 24, 2009, and that morning A123 Systems’ stock leapt more than 50 percent to close at $20.29 per share after pricing at $13.50 per share.
First off, A123 Systems’ lead makes the IPO prospects for greentech firms, and particularly electric vehicle companies, in 2010 look pretty good. The IPO market in 2009 was still very “anemic,” points out Dow Jones VentureSource. A123 Systems represented about a third of the overall IPO market in 2009 (about $900 million in all of 2009, see graphic below).
Read More about A123Systems Was Officially the Largest IPO of 2009
When a startup files an S-1 form with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch an initial public offering, it opens up info galore about the private company’s history, finances and strategy. We dug through the more than 230-page document filed yesterday by biocatalyst developer Codexis, and found tidbits on just how much the startup has had to pay the drug development company it spun out of seven years ago, how heavily it’s banking on oil giant Shell to commercialize biofuels, and what happened to the chief financial officer that the company once considered so valuable he was the only exec earning above market rate.
Reliance on Shell: Codexis (s CDXS) has a lot of chips riding on its work with Shell. If the startup succeeds in developing viable biocatalysts for biofuel production, it would rely on Shell (or other companies selected by the oil giant), “to design and build the commercial scale fuel production facilities and to distribute the final fuel product.” If the fuels take off, Codexis could reap big rewards: “If Shell commercializes our biofuels technology, we will collect a royalty for every gallon of fuel that Shell produces using our technology.” Read More about Codexis IPO: Why It Needs Shell & Other Fast Facts
Updated: From where Codexis stands, the market for initial public offerings is looking up. The 7-year-old startup — which develops catalysts for drug and fuel production, and aims to break into carbon capture — filed a prospectus for an IPO of up to $100 million on Monday with the SEC. This comes nearly a year and four months after Codexis requested withdrawal of an IPO filing originally submitted April 2008. When Codexis withdrew the filing this summer last September it said it was “due to current public market conditions.”
Based in Redwood City, Calif., Codexis counts oil giants Shell and Chevron among its backers, and is in the business of so-called evolved biocatalysts. The company takes a natural microbe or enzyme and shuffles the DNA sequences to create new variants, then searches for the variants best suited to the development of new, potentially cheaper drugs (Pfizer used Codexis enzymes to produce Lipitor) and non-ethanol biofuels.
Read More about Codexis Files for IPO, Again
Codexis, a Redwood City, Calif.-based startup that counts oil giants Shell and Chevron among its backers, is in the business of so-called evolved biocatalysts: It takes a natural microbe or enzyme and tweaks the DNA sequences to create new variants, then searches for the variants best suited to development of new, potentially cheaper drugs (Pfizer used Codexis enzymes to produce Lipitor) and non-ethanol biofuels. This summer, the 7-year-old startup said it was looking for ways to apply this expertise to the emerging market for carbon capture technologies. Now Codexis has found a partner in that effort.
Canadian carbon capture company CO2 Solution said late Tuesday afternoon that it’s scored a $2 million investment from Codexis, and that the two companies will work together — under an exclusive joint development agreement — on what’s called enzymatic carbon capture technology. According to the release, Codexis now owns a more than 16 percent stake in the Quebec-based firm. Read More about Codexis Aims to Bridge Biotech and Carbon Capture
Did Windows Mobile 6.5 leave you wanting more? Hang in there — by all accounts, you’ll have to wait until the second half of 2010 for the next version, which is Windows Mobile 7. Or is it? Over at Download Squad I just read about newer Microsoft (s msft) builds of WinMo 6.5 that are unofficially called version 6.5.1 by the user community. At first, I thought this was a version from the talented folks at XDA Developers, but as I dig around, it appears that Microsoft has created these newer builds.
Long Zheng has a few screenshots and I like what I see. For starters, some buttons and actions are down in a taskbar-like row on the bottom of the screen, providing more room for content. These look like icon-based actions, although some shots show labels in lieu of icons. The contacts app looks slightly refreshed, and some of the old-looking input screens also get a touch-up. Some of these builds have been leaked and packaged for specific devices, so Long recommends hitting up the XDA folks if you’re looking for something a little newer than the just-released Windows Mobile 6.5.
One of my issues with Microsoft’s mobile operating system is the lack of timely updates. I don’t see the same issue with Apple (s aapl), Google (s goog), or Palm (s palm), for example. But this could be a positive sign that Redmond is finally looking to offer more incremental updates to its partner carriers or its customers.
