From earth2tech:
Cheap, abundant, natural gas in the U.S. is remaking the American energy landscape. Can turning it into chemicals make one startup – and its new investors, which include Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen – filthy rich? Siluria Technologies, a three-year-old startup that turns natural gas into a building block that can be used to form chemicals, announced on Wednesday night that it has raised a new round of $30 million from Allen’s firm Vulcan Capital, Russian investors Bright Capital, and others.
Siluria, which uses technology from MIT scientist Angela Belcher, will use the funds to commercialize its technology. Currently the company is in the research and development phase, and plans to build its first demonstration plant to produce chemicals from natural gas at scale in 2013. The Siluria has now raised $63 million from a list of investors that also includes Kleiner Perkins, Alloy Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners, Altitude Life Sciences Ventures, Lux Capital and Presidio Ventures (part of Sumitomo Corp.)....MORE
