Solazyme announced recently the company has secured USD 52 million in Series D funding. The company's pursuing further development of technology which uses microbial fermentation to produce oil which can be used for the production of scalable biofuels, chemicals, nutritional food ingredients and health and wellness products.

This round of funding is lead by Braemer Energy Ventures and Morgan Stanley, along with the previous round investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners, The Roda Group, Harris and Harris Group, VantagePoint Venture Partners, and Zygote Ventures. The company's strategic investors include Chevron (through its CTTV Investments company) and San-Ei Gen (Japanese food ingredients manufacturer).

Solazyme is planning to commercialize its technology rapidly, in collaboration with global industry leaders and the US government. The latest funding round gives a significant boost to the company's efforts to produce renewable oil for various applications, including biofuels, at a large scale. With the planned transition of the public and commercial transport sector in the US, and other countries, like the UK, there will be a growing demand for biofuels such as biodiesel in the near future.

[source: Solazyme]