Out of all Google Venture's investments, biofuels seem like the farthest from the company's core business. Yes, you could probably run backup power diesel generators for data centers with CoolPlanetBioFuel's biofuel, but the technology isn't as applicable to the Internet and computing as, say, Transphorm's energy-efficient power electronics, a startup Google Ventures recently backed. But Google Ventures has maintained it's looking for financial returns like other venture investors, and not only participating in strategic backing.
Google's biofuel investment is its latest bet in the auto space; Google Ventures has also invested in neighbor-to-neighbor car sharing startup RelayRides, and Next Autoworks (a struggling company looking to make energy-efficient cars, previously called V Vehicle). RelayRides CEO Shelby Clark will be speaking at our Green:Net event on April 21 in San Francisco.
CoolPlanetBioFuels now has four of the most famous strategic backers in cleantech. It has developed a technology which aims to take non-food biomass (plant waste, energy crops, etc.) and turn it into a drop-in replacement for gas and diesel. The company calls its tech a "biomass fractionator."
It sounds similar to what KiOR is doing, using a catalyst to carbonize biomass (called its Biomass Catalytic Cracking Process), which was originally developed to help the oil industry break down heavy crude oil into more easily refined products for the oil industry.
