Novomer raises $14M for plastics from renewable feedstocks

Boston, Mass.-based Novomer said today it raised $14 million in a Series B funding round, led by OVP Venture Partners.

The materials company makes a family of high-performance plastics, polymers and other chemicals from renewable feedstocks such as carbon dioxide. The company said its products, based on the pioneering catalyst work of Professor Geoff Coates at Cornell University, are low-cost and offer high performance.

With the new funding, the company has raised about $21 million to date, being used to accelerate growth as it prepares for commercialization of a series of materials aimed at the packaging, coatings and chemicals markets, according to Novomer CEO Jim Mahoney, in a news release.

Existing equity investors that joined in the round included Physic Venture Partners, Flagship Ventures and DSM Venturing. The company has also received support from the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and the state of New York.

In 2007, Novomer raised $6.6 million in Series A funding. Physic Ventures and Flagship Ventures co-led the round, joined by DSM Venturing (see Solar and biofuel deals lead the day).

OVP Managing Director Carl Weissman, who plans to join Novomer's board, said in the release that the company’s products are especially important given that governments and companies worldwide are placing a heavy emphasis on environmental initiatives aimed at reducing carbon levels in the atmosphere.

“We believe that Novomer technologies enabling the use of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide as inexpensive raw materials are truly innovative and economically efficient ways to transform pollution into high performance materials that address huge global markets,” he said in the release.

In 2008, Novomer released its first product, a polypropylene carbonate sacrificial binder. The company said its polypropylene carbonate burns cleaner, more uniformly and at lower temperatures than other products (see Novomer releases biodegradable polymer).