The company, which is headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, announced the results of its latest round of funding at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi.
The identity of the new investor or investors has not been announced. Joule’s founding venture capital investor is Flagship Ventures.
The proceeds will be applied towards the build-out and operation of a Joule facility located in Hobbs, New Mexico and slated for commissioning in the summer of 2012.
The facility is designed to test and optimize Joule’s Helioculture process and SolarConverter system at incrementally larger scales, with the potential to expand to 1,000 acres for initial commercial production. This will also show the ease with which Joule’s process can scale from hundreds to thousands of acres, advantaged by a modular system design and lack of feedstock or resource constraints.
The new funds will also support Joule’s global expansion plans and on-going technology development.
“2011 was a year of milestones for Joule, including the groundbreaking at our first production site, the expansion of our pilot plant, the issuance of additional patents; now totaling 11, the transition to our new world-class headquarters and labs, and the successful close of our largest funding round to date,” said William J. Sims, Joule’s President and CEO.
“Our goal since inception has been to enable large-scale, renewable fuel production at unprecedented costs and volumes in the near term, without the obstacles and slow pace of biofuel progress. On the heels of our latest funding round and technology advancement, we’re in a very strong position to make it happen as planned,” Sims said.
Noubar Afeyan, Founder and Chairman of Joule and Managing Partner and CEO of Flagship Ventures described Joule as being among the “most innovative and transformative” companies to have emerged from it VentureLabs unit.
These innovations, Afeyan said, encompass “numerous breakthroughs in a highly-efficient, scalable process that represents a new paradigm for liquid fuel production.
“Joule has now successfully moved beyond the research phase to prove the industrial viability of its approach, with a clear path to global implementation,” he added.
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