Movements at Ginkgo BioWorks, Pacific Ethanol, Lygos, LanzaTech Show Where the Bioeconomy Is Heading

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) So many re-naming and brand extension efforts are underway this week, let’s look at those to see what’s working, what’s popular, when it comes to building trusted brands. ...

The Re-Branding: Pacific Ethanol

This past week we reported that Pacific Ethanol announced the company’s strategic realignment to focus on specialty alcohols and essential ingredients as well as its intent to change its corporate name. The company also announced the pricing of a $75 million equity offering and released certain preliminary results for the three months ended September 30, 2020.

If you were to guess that the financing was contingent on the name change, we wouldn’t laugh at you. After all, same thing happened with Solazyme became TerraVia (before it was sold to Corbion).

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The New Brand: Ginkgo’s gambits

In the case of Ginkgo BioWorks, the brand relates to the underlying technology, and the company has co-founded several allied companies alongside prominent investors to focus on specific product targets, using Ginkgo technology. So, the company launched Motif Ingredients and Joyn last year.

And, this week, Ginkgo Bioworks: announced the launch of bioremediation company Allonnia.

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Allonnia is the first to launch from Ferment Consortium (Ginkgo’s investment vehicle focused on leveraging synbio for global challenges).

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The Brand Extension: Lygos CBx

Over at Lygos, the company repositioned from renewable chemicals to “speciality ingredients” and lately has expanded its offerings into cannabinoids. This week, the company announced the launch of Lygos CBx, a Lygos company and new website focused on delivering a wide range of high-quality, pure and sustainable non-plant-based cannabinoids.

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So, in this case, we have an acquisition which needed to be aligned with the Lygos brand family, at the same time as the Lygos universe of products is becoming more diffuse and, well, universal — ....

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Building the Customer’s Brand: LanzaTech

LanzaTech has been as active as any company in forming partnerships and demonstrating technology that goes beyond the brand it’s built up in offgases-to-fuels. Other waste materials are being converted to fuels. Offgases are being converted to chemicals. Other waste carbon will be tapped to make sustainable biobased materials. As CEO Jennifer Holmgren has wryly observed, “there are no solar yoga pants”.

Most recently, LanzaTech, Total and L’Oréal have premiered the world’s first sustainable packaging made from captured and recycled carbon emissions.

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And, put this into the mix. Last week, the DOE awarded a grant to a LanzaTech, Inentec, Waste Management, Lululemon consortium, to convert gasified wastes to MEG. Plus, we saw that Mibelle will be using ethanol in their cleaning products.

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How do you brand this? To date, LanzaTech has generally left that up to its customers and partners. Some of the ventures reference ethanol, some mention ’steelanol’ which is cute and memorable. In some cases, the customer brand is not altered at all because of the new production process, it just is added to the brand’s sustainability cred.

There are exceptions to the rule, even in LanzaTech’s world, which partners extensively with the global Virgin brand but has opted for a much lower profile than Sir Richard Branson usually aims for. LanzaTech did found LanzaJet to pursue the production of sustainable aviation fuel from its low carbon ethanol — so, in that case, there’s a brand extension from the Lanza identity.

The Bottom Line

Couple of rules we can glean from these examples. Call them the Immutable Laws of Bioeconomy Growth, Pivoting & Change..

1. Pick a non-specific name for the company, thereby avoiding the need to rebrand later on as the market evolves. So, better Smithia than Smith Biofuels.

2. Avoid geographic labels where possible. California Biomaterials may prove a pesky brand if a) you leave California or b) you expand beyond biomaterials. And, re-branding if possible but it’s tough and distracting.

3. Add technology specifics to generic brands. No need to match your name to a specific process because you might find your expertise takes you in different directions. Your company should be Whitefox, your product could be Whitefox Membranes because someday you might make Whitefox Flocculators.

4. Brand families matter. Investors may not be enamored with your basic brand, and you may find yourself launching an Allonia to develop applications for your Ginkgo brand. We sure like product families to be better aligned. Better Alonnia, Agredia and Agrobia than Alonnia, Motif and Joyn, in our view. ThoughVirgin Mobile has little to to the Virgin Galactic, Virgin Rail, Virgin Cola or Virgin Air, they drive off each other and share an investment base and an esprit de corps that has done well for investors over the years. READ MORE

Excerpt from Advanced Financial Network: GreenShift Corporation (OTCQB: GERS) today announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, GS CleanTech Corporation, has filed suit against Pacific Ethanol, Inc., in the Eastern District of California for infringement of GreenShift’s patented corn oil extraction processes.

GreenShift will continue to defend against all infringement of its corn oil extraction patents to protect the competitive advantage of its licensed ethanol plants.

GreenShift’s technical services staff are available at 888-ETHANOIL or sales@greenshift.com to respond to quotation requests and to answer any questions about GreenShift’s corn oil extraction and other technologies.

GreenShift Corporation develops and commercializes clean technologies designed to address the financial and environmental needs of GreenShift’s clients by decreasing raw material needs, facilitating co-product reuse, and reducing the generation of wastes and emissions. Additional information on GreenShift and its technologies is available online at www.greenshift.com. READ MORE