Emefcy raises $5m Series A financing

Emefcy, a microbial fuel cell startup based in Caesarea, Israel, has raised $5 million at a company value of more than $10 million, post-money.

UK investment fund Pond Venture Partners led the round, joined by current Emefcy investors Israel Cleantech Ventures Funds and Plan B Ventures, according to Globes and IVC Online.

Emefcy, co-founded by serial entrepreneurs Eytan Levy and Ronen Shechter, is developing the MEGAWATTER™ technology. This technology produces low cost electricity (at $0.10/kWhr) and hydrogen in a bio-electro-chemical process from wastewater treatment by leveraging Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) technology.

Levy and Shechter previously founded wastewater treatment company AqWise. In February 2009, this blog detailed Emefcy's efforts to raise a $3.5-$5.0 million Series A financing. That same month, Levy presented at a public event at MIT organized by the Boston Israel Cleantech Alliance. Plan B Ventures is based in Boston and its principal, Barbara Goldman, is a member of the Boston Israel Cleantech Alliance.

Levy told Globes, "The capital raised will help us set up a commercial pilot. We've already established laboratory pilots on increasingly larger scales. Progress to a commercial pilot is based on the successful results of the laboratory pilots."



Emefcy's Scientific Advisory Board includes Prof. Bruce Logan of Pennsylvania State University, Prof. Derek Lovely of the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and Prof. Bruce Rittmann, Director of the Biodesign Institute at the University of Arizona.

Related Posts:

Emefcy signs collaboration agreements, raising Series A funds

Israel Cleantech buys 11% of AqWise

AqWise founders start new cleantech venture

Advanced Technology Ventures looks for cleantech opportunities in Israel

"Globes" reports that Andrew Friendly, a Boston-based senior associate at US venture capital fund Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV), and a specialist in cleantech investments, was in Israel earlier this month to look at the sector and the opportunities the local market has to offer. Friendly previously spent five years at the White House in a variety of positions including personal aide to President Clinton. During the last three years he worked as a director at Idealab in Pasadena, CA, where he specialized in evaluating energy and cleantech technologies for possible investment and company creation.

ATV, which was founded in 1979, manages $1.4 billion in assets, and invests in software, telecommunications, medical devices, life sciences, and, in the last five years, also cleantech. The fund has not yet made any investments in Israeli companies.

Andrew Friendly was in Israel as a guest at the second annual Cleantech Investment Forum, conducted by law firm Herzog, Fox & Neeman, with the participation this year of Boston law firm Mintz Levin. The forum focused this year on the potential for overseas investment in Israeli cleantech. In her speech at the conference, Dr. Ruth Dagan, head of the Environmental Law practice at Herzog, Fox & Neeman, reviewed current trends in the sector. "Israel is characterized, at least at this point in time, by a wide range of investment platforms in the field - venture capital funds, private investors, and holding companies. As investors accrue more knowledge in the field and global activity in it expands, interest spreads from investments in mature companies already posting sales of their own to research into companies now in the preliminary stages of technological development," she said.

Friendly was also in Israel for a series of business meetings, as he explains: "The reason for the visit is to get to know the Israeli deal flow, the companies which are active, the R&D centers and the service providers. Israel has a worldwide reputation as a leader in research, and a location with an ability to incubate ideas. I want to see what's going on here in the solar energy and water fields. We did look at a number of Israeli water companies once, but we didn't make any investments."

Click here for the rest of Globes' interview with Andrew Friendly.