Biodiesel Demands Fuel Firm's Growth
Emeryville's Amyris set to go on hiring spree to expand business thanks to rise in popularity of alternative energy sources
By George Avalos STAFF WRITERContra Costa Times
Amyris Technologies Inc., riding a dynamic surge in the biofuels industry, has charged to a swift expansion of its business, harvested a new round financing and is poised for a hiring spree.
The East Bay biofuels company is fresh from landing $70 million in venture capital. Amyris also signed a lease in Emeryville that will triple its office and research space.
Emeryville-based Amyris intends to hire about 100 workers, which would roughly double its workforce, according to Kinkead Reiling, Amyris co-founder and senior vice president.
"We are looking at what we need to do to take the company to the next level," Reiling said.
The company's expansion is a reminder of the dynamic potential for an alternative-energy industry that has begun to hatch in the region.
"Alternative energy is big right now," said Jonathan Tomasco, a broker with the Cornish & Carey commercial realty office in Emeryville. "You hear about solar companies, biofuels companies popping up. This is a growing industry."
Amyris agreed to rent 70,000 square feet at EmeryStation East, an office project across the street from the company's present head offices. It's possible that when Amyris relocates next spring, it will also retain the 20,000 square feet it now occupies. The lease was arranged through Cornish & Carey.
The deal represents a payoff on something of a gamble for the creator of the new complex, Wareham Development. Wareham built the 245,000-square-foot project with no assurance it would land tenants.
"We built this to be a top-of-the-line research building," said Geoffrey Sears, a partner with Wareham Development. "We thought the market has evolved and is ready for that kind of project. We built it speculatively, but also with the hope that there would be demand for this type of research space."
It looks as if tenants will gobble up at least 75 percent of the building shortly. Besides Amyris, two other big tenants are believed to be headed to the building.
One confirmed tenant is Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics Inc., which is occupying 36,000 square feet. Another tenant, not officially disclosed yet, but believed to be linked to government-sponsored alternative-energy research, could occupy a big chunk of space in the building at 5885 Hollis St. between 59th and Powell streets.
"Emeryville, Berkeley, Richmond and, to a lesser extent, Alameda, are part of what is a strong biotech corridor," Sears said. "The I-80 corridor is close to UC Berkeley. UC San Francisco is right across the Bay."
Amyris is growing rapidly because it has invented a way to create microbes that can transform commodities such as sugar into fuel. Some researchers believe sugar as a fuel feed stock tends to be more energy-efficient and less damaging to the environment to produce than is corn, a feed stock for ethanol fuel.
"Amyris is designing better biofuels from designer bugs," John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a venture firm backing Amyris, said in a statement.
The biofuels efforts are one reason Amyris has stepped up its hiring. Amyris has about 95 workers but wants to double that size "in the foreseeable future," Reiling said. The company will be picky about who it brings on board the research-intensive company, which intends to ramp up to mass production by 2010 or 2011.
Amyris initially focused on using its genetically created bugs to synthesize inexpensive medicines to combat malaria. Less costly anti-malarial treatments are seen as a great benefit to people in relatively poor countries. Despite its success with biofuels, Amyris says it is still strongly focused on the malaria enterprise.
"We have not forgotten, or lost any enthusiasm, about the malaria project that got our company going," Reiling said.
Reiling also said that the move by Amyris to hire John Melo, a former executive with British Petroleum, has been a catalyst for Amyris to explore horizons beyond malaria.
"If you bring in that sort of expertise, it changes things," Reiling said. "Our company has gone in some pleasantly unexpected directions."
George Avalos covers jobs, economic development, commercial real estate, finance and petroleum. Reach him at 925-977-8477 or gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com
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