Forsaking funding at a $1 billion valuation, ...

Late last year, Solugen , a startup using synthetic biology to take hydrocarbons out of the chemicals industry, decided against pursuing a new round of funding that would have valued the company at over $1 billion, TechCrunch has learned. Instead, the Houston-based bio-manufacturing company raised an internal round of roughly $30 million from existing investors and continued working on its latest project — a new bio-based manufacturing process for a high-value specialty chemical that can act as an anti-corrosive agent. That work represents a potentially lucrative new product line for the company and charts a course for a host of other businesses that are refashioning the basic building bl... Full story

21 January