05 April 2011 Agilyx Corporation - an alternative energy company which claims to be the first in the world to economically convert waste plastics into crude oil - has secured $22 million in Series B funding.
The investment was led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and joined by new strategic investors, Waste Management, Inc. and Total Energy Ventures International, an affiliate of oil and gas major Total S.A.
Existing investors, Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, Saffron Hill Ventures, and Reference Capital also participated in the round.
"This latest investment in Agilyx represents a significant milestone for our company," said Chris Ulum, chief executive officer of Agilyx Corporation. "With these funds and strategic partners at our side, we are well positioned to help our customers and the communities in which they operate improve the diversion and recovery of waste plastics, and create new local sources of crude oil."
"By providing this alternative while the world's insatiable appetite for oil continues, our solution can offset the use of fossil crude oil and create new cleantech jobs in the process," Ulum added.
The company claims that its waste plastic conversion technology recycles mixed waste plastic into synthetic crude oil, and that its expertise is in anaerobic thermal reclamation processes and their commercial application, as well as in marketing synthetic crude oil as a feedstock to existing petroleum refineries.
Agilyx deploys its systems with companies engaged in the management of plastic waste streams, and says that its facility near Portland, Oregon is the largest commercially operational waste plastic to synthetic crude oil facility in North America.
The company also claims to be the first of its kind to successfully permit in the U.S. and to have the first known refinery off take agreement in the industry. Agilyx says that it has produced and sold more than 120,000 gallons (450,000 litres) of crude oil, through the conversion of plastic that would otherwise have been landfilled or incinerated.
"Waste Management wants to maximize the value of the materials it manages," said Tim Cesarek, managing director of Organic Growth at Waste Management.
"Agilyx's technology complements Waste Management's advancement of thermal chemical conversion technology platforms and provides us with a viable option for processing contaminated and difficult to recycle waste plastics while creating a high value commodity," he added
"As a major plastics manufacturer and as an oil refining company, Total is pleased to support the further development of Agilyx, whose technology offers a scalable economic option to recovering waste plastics," concluded Manoelle Lepoutre, senior vice president Sustainable Development and Environment for Total SA, and president of Total Energy Ventures International.
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