Deinove publishes financial results

A specialist in Deinococcus bacteria for biofuels, green chemistry and antibiotics, Deinove has published its financial results to 31 December 2010.

Last year the company consolidated its alliances with its longstanding technology partners and signed a new, wide-ranging collaboration agreement with enzyme and chemical company VTT-Technical Research Centre of Finland.

As part of the Deinol project, Deinove finalised a technological and commercial collaboration with Benp Lillebonne – a subsidiary of sugar, ethanol and starch company Tereos. The two partners will work together on the development of a cost-effective process for the production of bioethanol from agricultural biomass. The collaboration primarily covers the industrialisation phase at the Lillebonne factory, with a pilot fermenter step and final, factory-scale testing.

On 27 April the company listed on the stock market and raised €12.1 million (a net amount of €11.3 million, after the deduction of listing costs). 63% of the shares were purchased by institutional investors and the remaining 37% were sold through an open price offering. Deinove's industrial partner Tereos invested €1 million in the share capital increase. Truffle Capital, Deinove's founding shareholder, invested €2.35 million via two of its venture capital funds.

Over the second half of the financial year the company received €0.6 million in grants from the OSEO ISI programme for its Deinol project.

Commenting on the financial results, Deinove's CEO Jacques Biton says: '2010 marked a clear change of scale in the company's development. Thanks to our IPO and our search for environmentally and economically viable alternatives to fossil energies and petrochemical-derived compounds, many investors have placed their trust in us and have given us the resources we need to accelerate our R&D programmes. With the grants that have already been awarded to the company, we believe that we now have enough resources to take our projects successfully to the industrialisation phase. From that standpoint, our collaboration with Tereos - one of the world's leading sugar, ethanol and starch companies - is a key element in transforming our innovations into industrial solutions'.