- Houston-based emerging specialty chemicals manufacturer Solugen announced it has raised a $32 million Series B round of funding.
- Founders Fund led this round of funding and there was key participation from Y Combinator, Refactor Capital, Fifty Years, and KdT Ventures
Solugen is a Houston-based emerging specialty chemicals manufacturer and is considered the world’s first and only producer of bio-based peroxide solutions. Recently, Solugen announced it closed a $32 million Series B round of funding led by Founders Fund. And there was key participation from Y Combinator, Refactor Capital, Fifty Years, and KdT Ventures.
This round of funding comes on the heels of the company raising $13.5 million in October 2018. And this round of funding will be used for continuing to fuel Solugen’s rapid growth as it is seeking to decarbonize the chemicals industry using bio-based technologies.
Launched in 2016, Solugen essentially produces bio-based solutions that fundamentally change the chemicals industry. And its first product called Bioperoxide was created using patented enzymatic technology for converting plant sugars into hydrogen peroxide and led to the manufacturing of a comprehensive line of products like its flagship BioSol and ScavSol solutions.
“Solugen is on track to become a major player in the chemical industry,” said Founders Fund partner Brian Singerman. “The company’s success to date proves that there is significant demand for cleaner, greener methods of chemical production. For customers, choosing between toxic, petrochemical-based chemicals and cheaper, safer, environmentally friendly bio-chemicals from Solugen is a no-brainer.”
Now BioSol and ScavSol are being used for helping treat, clean and oxidize water uses with oil and gas, waste water treatment, and mining chemicals. Solugen’s solutions essentially remove the need for highly combustible and toxic petrochemical-based chemicals to clean water as its products are cheaper, safer to produce, and less hazardous for customers and their employees as well as fully biodegradable.
“This is a momentous landmark in our company’s young history, and we want to thank our investors for their support as well as for their belief in our technology, team, and mission of decarbonizing the chemicals industry,” explained Solugen CEO Gaurab Chakrabarti, MD, PhD. “Our fundamental green chemistry and enzymatic technology have allowed us to create both products and technologies that no one in our industry currently has such as BioSol, ScavSol and our mini-mills. Innovations like the mini-mill, which go beyond the product, are especially important as we move forward since they illustrate how we understand the needs of our customers who are operating in an environment where freight, importer, and distributor margins for petrochemical-based water treatment chemistries cost more than double our solutions. This proprietary technology allows us to co-locate with large offtake customers to provide the best price while a customer can also descale its products and operate profitably at levels below 10,000 tons per year in an environment where most petro-based chemical plants can only be profitable at scales of more than 10 times that amount. Thanks to innovations like this our customers are seeing results that save them a tremendous amount of money, reduce their carbon footprint and minimize the dangers associated with using traditional, often dangerous petrochemical-derived products.”
Over the last year, Solugen’s revenue grew by over 10 times due to multiple multimillion-dollar oil and gas contracts. And the company also recently started construction a new 200,000 square foot headquarters in Houston that will be completed in early 2020. This location will be used for housing its research and development and logistics operations as well as its commercial-scale mini-mill.
With this round of funding, Solugen is going to scale up its development of other bio chemical solutions along with their mobile micromanufacturing platforms known as mini-mills and further deepen an already robust talent pool of energy executives, chemists, and scientists.
Solugen has also launched and sold its first national brand called Ode to Clean to Diamond Wipes last year. And Solugen secured the Environmental Protection Agency’s Safer Choice Award for Innovation. And the company is working on filing 10 U.S. patents.
“There is no other company today developing enzyme technology at the level Solugen is,” added Solugen’s new Head of Enzymology Toni Lee — who most recently served as Principal Scientist at Provivi, Inc. and was a member of the winning Nobel Prize in Chemistry team in 2018. “The things happening inside Solugen’s labs really do have the potential to change the world for the better as this company is dramatically altering the way businesses use chemicals as well as the way they are made.”
