Company that converts waste plastic to oil secures $22 Million in financing
Agilyx Corporation, an alternative energy company (pronounced AJ-il-ix) who is the first in the world to economically convert difficult-to-recycle waste plastics into crude oil through a patented system that is scalable, versatile, and environmentally beneficial, announced in March that it has secured $22 million in Series B funding. The funding is led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), and joined by new strategic investors, Waste Management, Inc. and Total Energy Ventures International, an affiliate of oil and gas major Total S.A.. Existing investors, Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, Saffron Hill Ventures, and Reference Capital also participated in this latest round.
"This latest investment in Agilyx represents a significant milestone for our company," said Chris Ulum, chief executive officer of Agilyx Corporation. "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."
Agilyx's fully permitted, patented waste plastic conversion technology recycles mixed waste plastic into synthetic crude oil in a scalable, versatile, and environmentally-beneficial manner. Its expertise is in its efficient, anaerobic thermal reclamation process and in the commercial application of this process, including building and operating commercial scale systems, and successfully marketing synthetic crude oil as a feedstock to existing petroleum refineries. The Company deploys its systems with companies engaged in the management of plastic waste streams.
Today Agilyx's facility near Portland, Oregon is the largest commercially operational waste plastic to synthetic crude oil facility in North America. The Company was the first of its kind to successfully permit in the U.S. and has the first known refinery off take agreement in the industry. Agilyx has produced and sold more than 120,000 gallons of crude oil, meaning its technology has recovered over 1 million pounds of plastic that would otherwise have been landfilled or incinerated, while providing cleantech jobs and a new domestic source of crude oil.
"Agilyx is the only company using waste to make a truly viable synthetic crude product. 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," said Amol Deshpande, a member of KPCB's GreenTech Investment Team.
"Waste Management wants to maximize the value of the materials it manages," said Tim Cesarek, managing director of Organic Growth at Waste Management. "Agilyx's 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."
"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," said Manoelle Lepoutre, senior vice president Sustainable Development and Environment for TOTAL SA, and president of Total Energy Ventures International.
Agilyx is an alternative energy company who's proprietary technology reduces plastic waste normally destined for landfills, produces refinery-ready crude oil, and creates community and local jobs with its small-scale, distributed waste management and energy production approach. The company's affordable, modular systems are sold to industrial and municipal waste plastic generators and aggregators looking to reduce disposal-related costs and increase plastics-associated revenues – all while meeting challenging environmental standards, curbing the need for new landfills, and extracting the often-unused and untapped energy contained within waste plastic. Agilyx has the only known refinery offtake agreement in the industry and currently ships crude oil from its showcase facility in Portland, Oregon to a refinery in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.