Agilyx Corp., based in Portland, Ore., has secured $22 million in funding from a consortium of companies led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), with U.S. offices in Menlo Park, Calif., and joined by Houston-based Waste Management Inc. (WMI) and Total Energy Ventures International, an affiliate of Total S.A., based in France. Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, Saffron Hill Ventures and Reference Capital, existing Agilyx investors, also participated in the funding.
Agilyx claims it is the first company to economically convert difficult to recycle plastics into synthetic crude oil.
"This latest investment in Agilyx represents a significant milestone for our company," says Chris Ulum, Agilyx CEO. "With these funds and strategic partners at our side, we are well positioned to help our customers and the communities in which they operate improve the diversion and recovery of waste plastics and create new local sources of crude oil. By providing this alternative while the world's insatiable appetite for oil continues, our solution can offset the use of fossil crude oil and create new cleantech jobs in the process,” Ulum adds.
The company says that its plastic conversion technology recycles mixed plastics into synthetic crude oil in a scalable, versatile and environmentally beneficial manner. Agilyx’ business model includes building and operating commercial scale systems and marketing synthetic crude oil as a feedstock to existing petroleum refineries.
Agilyx says its facility near Portland is the largest commercially operational scrap plastics to synthetic crude oil facility in North America. Since starting the plastics recycling facility in Portland, Agilyx says it has converted more than 1 million pounds of mixed plastics into 120,000 gallons of crude oil.
"Agilyx is the only company using waste to make a truly viable synthetic crude product,” says Amol Deshpande, a member of the KPCB GreenTech Investment Team. “With this capital and the addition of world-class strategic partners like Total and Waste Management, we are confident in the ability of Agilyx to quickly make a positive impact on the way mixed waste plastic is handled and the way fuel is produced around the world.”
Tim Cesarek, managing director of organic growth for Waste Management, says, "Waste Management wants to maximize the value of the materials it manages. Agilyx technology complements Waste Management's advancement of thermal chemical conversion technology platforms and provides us with a viable option for processing contaminated and difficult to recycle waste plastics while creating a high-value commodity."
Manoelle Lepoutre, senior vice president of sustainable development and environment for TOTAL SA and president of Total Energy Ventures International, says, "As a major plastics manufacturer and as an oil refining company, Total is pleased to support the further development of Agilyx, whose technology offers a scalable economic option to recovering waste plastics.”