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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Ex-DuPont exec heads wood-to-fuel firm, gets $25M from VCs

William Frey, Ph.D., former global biofuels director at the DuPont Co. in Wilmington, and Sarad Parekh, Ph.D., once a Merck scientist, are among the big-company refugees now running Qteros Inc. (formerly Sun Ethanol), Amherst, Mass., which yesterday collected $25 million from oil giant BP, venture investor Battery Ventures, liberal billionaire speculator George Soros, and the Rockefeller-founded Venrock fund (which backed Intel, Apple, Centocor, and many more) to ramp up production of its "Q-microbe," which turns wood fiber (and corn and sugarcane waste) into alcohol fuel - a supplement and alternative to scarce petroleum.

Qteros, nurtured on Department of Energy and National Science Foundation grants, hopes the new Obama administration will make manufactured fuels more lucrative, says cofounder Jef Sharp. More in today's print PhillyDeals column here.
Posted by Joseph N. DiStefano @ 8:41 AM  Permalink | Post a comment
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About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Joe has been a member of Bloomberg LP’s New York Finance Team, wrote the book “Comcasted,” taught writing at St. Joseph’s University, and studied economics and history at Penn. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com
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