The Minneapolis-based University of Minnesota spinoff is working to develop technology that makes it easier for companies to produce clean fuels, chemicals, and water with an assist from microorganisms.
Startup BioCee, Inc., has raised $357,070 in capital—about 42 percent of the $857,070 in financing that it hopes to obtain, according to a Monday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Minneapolis-based BioCee is working to develop technology that makes it easier for companies to produce clean fuels, chemicals, and water with an assist from microorganisms. BioCee has invented ways to adhere live microorganisms to a composite material similar to paint, making the bacteria easy to ship and deploy quickly into manufacturing processes where they can be used as chemical catalysts.
The BioCee technology was developed by Michael Flickinger, a U of M professor and a founding director of the U’s BioTechnology Institute. Marc von Keitz, program director at the BioTechnology Institute, is BioCee’s cofounder, CEO, and chief technology officer.
The technology’s possibilities include producing cleaner petroleum and eliminating phosphorous and other nutrients from water. BioCee claims that its technology offers the first cost-effective way to filter the fertilizer phosphorous from water and reclaim it for agricultural reuse, and its microorganisms can also clean sulfur from fuel.
In October, BioCee and its two research and development partners—the University of Minnesota and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, based in Richland, Washington—received a $2.2 million federal grant to further develop BioCee’s technology. The grant supports BioCee’s biocatalyst process for lower-cost biofuel production.
Also in October 2009, BioCee received a $150,000 Small Business Innovative Research award from the National Science Foundation. Such grants are given to small businesses for novel research that has a potential for commercialization.
BioCee was a finalist in the Clean & Green division of last year’s fifth annual Minnesota Cup competition, which seeks out aspiring entrepreneurs and their breakthrough business ideas.
—Christa Meland
(cmeland@tcbmag.com)