Washington DC Energy & Environmental Funders

Hosting Sponsor:
Andrews Kurth LLP

The Center for Economic and Environmental Partnership, Inc., will sponsor its next Washington, DC Energy & Environmental Funders’ meeting on Friday March 7, 2008.

Zymetis, Inc. is a biotechnology company developing novel enzyme products that lower costs and improve yields and manufacturing efficiencies in the conversion of cellulosic biomass to ethanol and other useable energy products. The company believes that its enzymes have the potential to decrease the cost of cellulosic ethanol production by as much as 33%, making it competitive with gasoline.

Inventor and founder Dr. Steven Hutcheson, CEO, and Mr. Steven Davey, COO, will describe Zymetis's Ethazyme™ product lines, which are composed of enzyme mixtures that act in concert to release sugars from biomass. Each Ethazyme™ product is a distinct blend of biomass-degrading enzymes that can include ligninases, hemicellulases, pectolytic enzymes, and cellulases to process specific parts of the biomass.

Zymetis expects to sell its proprietary enzyme technology to corn-based ethanol plant operators to improve their profitability and yield by more efficiently using the feedstock. The company also plans to sell enzymes to waste paper processing facilities for turning the cellulosic component of waste paper into ethanol. Zymetis views the application of its enzyme technology in existing ethanol production facilities as a route to fund the growth of the company as it develops products for the expanding biomass market, which is forecast to grow to $5 billion or more by 2022, assuming the Federal projections of 20 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol are realized.

Zymetis feels that it will be able to compete effectively with Novozymes, Mascoma, Iogen, Genencor, Dyadic, and Verenium, because of its enzymes' low cost of production, wide spectrum of activity, work speed, storability and ability to operate under tough industrial conditions with high salt and temperature. Moreover, their enzymes are less susceptible to inhibitors produced during the degradation of biomass.

With one issued and six pending patents, Zymetis works out of research facilities in the Technology Advancement Program (TAP) business incubator building on the University of Maryland - College Park and includes wet laboratory space, access to common, high-cost equipment and business development mentoring. The Intellectual Property is based on the research activities of Dr. Hutcheson, the company founder, and is exclusively and indefinitely licensed from the University of Maryland.

Sector Expert: Jim Chung, Director, VentureAccelerator, University of Maryland, will describe the range of services the VentureAccelerator provides to Zymetis and how, from his experience as a former venture capitalist, that community will respond to Zymetis's potential.

Date: Friday, March 7, 2008
Time: 8:00 – 10:00 am
Place: Andrews Kurth LLP
1350 I Street, NW, Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20006
202-662-2700

Nearest Metro stop: The building is between 13th and 14th Street. You can exit at McPherson Square and cross the street to the building or exit Metro Center on 13th Street (and G Street) and walk up to 13th and I, where you make a left and cross the street.

Cost: $50 if you pre-register.
Cash or checks (payable to CEEP) accepted. Must register or cancel by 4pm the previous day. No shows will be invoiced.
$60 if you pay at the door.
See below for Annual Registration opportunities and other important conditions.

Agenda:
8:00 to 8:20 – Networking with Members
8:30 to 9:00 – Presentation by Steven Hutcheson, Founder, CEO & CTO and Steven Davey, COO
9:00 to 9:30 – Presentation by Sector Expert: Jim Chung, Director, VentureAccelerator, University of Maryland
9:30 to 10:00 – Discussion and Networking

Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you at the next DC Funders meeting.

If you have any questions about registration or need more information about the program, please contact Gelvin Stevenson at gelvin@optonline.net.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES:

Dr. Steve Hutcheson, founder, CEO and CTO of the company, is a recognized leader in the field of bacterial molecular biology and is one of the world's foremost authorities on Saccharophagus degradans - the bacterium from which the company derives its unique intellectual property. He has more than 211 formal research presentations and publications, one patent with seven pending, 22 years of competitively-awarded Federal research support, served on 18 advisory panels for Federal funding agencies and was a speaker at the "Conversion of biomass to renewable energy" 2007 colloquium at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, and at the 2007 Gordon Conference on Cellulases and Cellulosomes. He is presently on leave from the University of Maryland.

Mr. Steven Davey, COO, co-founded Refining & Petrochemical Ventures, LLC (RPV) in 2005, an enterprise that provides risk management to petroleum refiners involved in the manufacture, procurement, storage and sale of petrochemical feedstocks. Prior to forming RPV, Mr. Davey spent 24 years at W. R. Grace, a Columbia, Maryland specialty chemicals company. Mr. Davey has extensive experience with product line management and has served as worldwide sales and marketing director for several business units. Mr. Davey also has management and hands-on experience in sales, marketing, strategic planning, manufacturing, and finance. Throughout his career, new product development and commercialization has been a key component of his success. The business units he managed were highly profitable and experienced high growth rates through organic growth, combined with successful execution of partnerships, joint ventures, and acquisitions. Mr. Davey has a Bachelors Degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Delaware and Masters in Business Administration from Loyola College of Maryland.

Jim Chung is the director of the VentureAccelerator at the University of Maryland, a program to accelerate the successful formation of startup companies based on university inventions. Previously, Jim served as the director of New Business Development at the Corporate Executive Board, where he was recruited to set up their mergers and acquisitions capability. Before relocating to the Washington DC area, Jim was a venture capital and private equity investor in Boston at Intervale Capital and incTANK Ventures. Jim received his BA and MA from Stanford University, and served as a research fellow at MIT, Harvard, and the University of Tokyo (Fulbright Fellow) before starting his business career.v

Advisory Board
Zachary Alexander, ebT Design, LLC
Bob Lawrence, Bob Lawrence & Associates
Mark Riedy, Andrews Kurth LLC
Ira Rubenstein, Center for Economic and Environmental Partnership, Inc.
Gelvin Stevenson, Ph.D., Center for Economic and Environmental Partnership, Inc.
Michael Ware, Advance Capital Markets, Inc.

DCE&EF Pricing Policy
1. Cost, with pre-registration up to 4pm the day before the meeting: $50.
2. No-shows will be invoiced.
3. Cancellations allowed until 4pm the day before the meeting.
4. Cost, with registration at the door the day of the meeting: $60.
5. All paid registrants will be emailed any information made available electronically for that meeting.
6. An Annual Registration for DCE&EF can be purchased for $400. It will provide admittance to all regularly scheduled meetings held during a 12-month period.
7. Annual registrants will be emailed any information made available electronically for any of the regularly scheduled meetings covered by their annual registration.

Formed in February 2004, DC Energy & Environmental Funders (DCE&EF) is a joint service of Investors Circle, the Energy & Environmental Capital Network (ECN), the Environmental Business Association of New York State, Inc. (EBA/NYS), Investors Circle and Cleantech Venture Network LLC (Cleantech). DCE&EF provides networking, information, and other services to investors interested in energy and environmental companies. DCE&EF activities are produced by the Center for Economic and Environmental Partnership, Inc. (CEEP) in furtherance of its educational mission.

Click here to return to the CEEP, Inc. home page.