AltraBiofuels Names New CEO, Starts Second Plant Production

We reported in April that the CEO of ethanol startup AltraBiofuels, Larry Gross, had left the company and planned to head up a spin-off firm called Edeniq, which will focus on cellulosic ethanol. This morning AltraBiofuels put out an announcement officially naming former Exxon Mobil exec Kenneth DeCubellis as its new President and CEO and detailing that AltraBiofuels will retain more than 30 percent of Edeniq’s outstanding equity.

In April Edeniq’s VP of sales and marketing, Will Gardenswartz, told us that it had become clear that the four-year-old AltraBiofuels was a company heading in two different directions: One, a corn-based ethanol producer focused on buying and processing corn efficiently, and two, an R&D-focused team of scientists working on cellulosic ethanol processing technology. So the company decided to spin out the cellulosic and process engineering technology division into Edeniq.

DeCubellis says the move will help AltraBiofuels “focus on the execution and the building out of our corn-to-ethanol assets,” and Edeniq’s yield-enhancing work will also help AltraBiofuels attempt to produce a low-cost ethanol from corn. The corn-based ethanol market is difficult, with very tight margins, so we’ll see how well AltraBiofuel’s new plan works.

AltraBiofuels is backed by hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from investors, including Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufiled & Byers, the Angeleno Group and Sage Capital partners. Edeniq, based in Visalia, Calif., was launched with over $30 million in funding from AltraBiofuel’s existing investors, including Kleiner Perkins. Edeniq spent part of that funding buying the technology assets away from AltraBiofuels.

In the same release AltraBiofuels also announced that it had started production at its second ethanol plant, in Cloverdale, Ind., that will produce 84 million gallons per year, with a planned production capacity of 110 million gallons per year.