Mascoma, Elevance Plan IPOs

Two renewable chemicals companies, Mascoma and Elevance Renewable Sciences, have filed for initial public offerings of stock, each worth up to $100 million. In its filing, cellulosic ethanol firm Mascoma touts its consolidated bioprocessing technology, in which a single engineered yeast breaks down biomass into sugar and then converts it into ethanol. For near-term revenue, Mascoma will market a different yeast to the corn ethanol industry. It plans to build two plants to convert hardwood pulp into ethanol. Construction on one of the plants, in Kinross, Mich., is scheduled to begin within six months. Elevance produces specialty chemicals and intermediates from vegetable oils. The company’s process uses metathesis catalysts to break down the oils and recombine the fragments into high-value chemicals. Elevance is building a metathesis-based biorefinery in Indonesia with partner Wilmar International and is repurposing an existing facility in Natchez, Miss. The IPO filings follow recent stock-raising moves by renewable chemicals firms Gevo, Solazyme, and Genomatica.