P2 Science doubled down on total funding received yesterday with the announcement of a $1 million Series A investment from repeat investors Elm Street Ventures and Connecticut Innovations (CI), the state-funded investor for innovative companies based in the state. This Series A follows three rounds of venture and seed financings over the past few years, totaling $1 million. CI was the sole investor in the first two, a pre-seed of $150,000 and then a first seed round of $200,000. Elm Street joined for the third, which was last May for $650,000.
The company was co-founded by Patrick Foley, a graduate of the PhD program in environmental engineering at Yale who now serves as the chief science officer and Neil Burns, P2 Science’s current CEO and veteran executive in the specialty chemical sector. P2 Science has developed a chemical process — in part by licensing some of its intellectual property from Yale — called hybrid ozonolysis that converts biomass into chemicals that are used in fragrances, flavors, cosmetics, polymers and more in replacement of petroleum-based chemicals.
“We greatly appreciate the support of Connecticut Innovations. This investment enables us to secure the additional partner and customer commitments needed for us to get to market with innovative and value-added specialty chemicals,” said Neil Burns, P2 Science’s chief executive officer.
While still in early testing stage using a pilot reactor at its current lab in New Haven, the company said it is now in talks with prospective partners and customers.
P2 Science is the latest among a handful of other biochemical and biofuel companies at all stages that have announced funding recently. The list includes two Nasdaq-listed companies: biofuel company KiOR and green chemical company Amyris, which announced a $25 PIPE from current investor Vinod Khosla and a $4 million stock purchase from Kuraray Co., a global chemical products company. On the later stage side of the spectrum, LanzaTech, which has developed a carbon capture and utilization technology for fuel and chemical production, has raised $60 million Series D from a group of investors including corporate strategic arms of Mitsui & Co. and Siemens and Khosla Ventures.
Another early stage Series A was announced by Revolution Fuels. The company has raised $2 million from Liberation Capital for its mobile biodiesel production technology.