NexSteppe, a company delivering the next generation of sustainable feedstock solutions for the biobased industries, announced today it has raised $22M Series C from Total Energy Ventures (VC arm of Total), Berninghausen family office, and other individual investors join Braemar Energy Ventures, CYM Ventures, DuPont Ventures.
NexSteppe is a seed company that develops crops that provide biomaterials for biofuels, biopower and biobased products. Sugars and biomass from NexSteppe’s tailored crops can be processed by biomass boilers, anaerobic digesters and biorefineries into other products from power and electricity to first and second-generation biofuels to plastics and chemical intermediates.
The biobased industries are experiencing growth driven by increasing energy demand, a desire for energy security, volatile fossil fuel prices, and concerns about the environmental impacts of fossil fuel use.
The company will use the money to continue to improve its industry-leading Palo Alto biomass sorghum and Malibu sweet sorghum product lines, already available to customers in Brazil and the U.S., as well as to launch additional product lines and expand its market development efforts around the world. According to NexSteppe founder and CEO, Anna Rath, “NexSteppe has already demonstrated itself as the market leader in dedicated biomass crops. We now look forward to rapidly achieving a level of scale and global presence that will make these crops a reliable, bankable feedstock solution for all biobased industries throughout the globe.”
“DuPont is pleased that our collaboration with NexSteppe has helped them achieve their first commercial sales for more sustainable feedstocks in the United States and Brazil,” said Michael Blaustein, director DuPont Ventures. “As a science company, we believe that collaborations with new ventures such as these are an important part of helping bring cutting edge science to market.”
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