Mass High Tech - November 7, 2007

Mascoma buys Hoosier biofuels startup
Mass High Tech

Cambridge biofuels developer Mascoma Corp. says it has acquired Indianapolis-based Celsys BioFuels Inc., a maker of cellulosic ethanol production technology that was spun out of Purdue University last year.

Celsys BioFuels was founded in 2006 by Michael Ladisch, a researcher at Purdue who will be taking a two-year leave of absence from the university to join Mascoma as its CTO. As a result of the appointment, Mascoma's acting CTO, Andrew Richard, will assume the role of managing director for Mascoma Canada and will be responsible for pursuing cellulosic biofuels opportunities in Canada.

Financial terms of the transaction -- which provides Mascoma with additional intellectual property and additional research in biomass processing -- were not disclosed.

Mascoma was founded in 2005 by Dartmouth professors Lee Lynd and Charles Wyman. The company emerged from stealth mode in 2006 and has since raised two rounds of private financing totaling $34 million. Investors include local firms General Catalyst Partners and Atlas Venture.