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Solazyme Adds Bunge as Strategic Investor in Series D

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  Published in House and Home on Thursday, August 26th 2010 at 6:05 GMT by Market Wire
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SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--Solazyme, Inc., the leading industrial biotechnology company producing renewable oil and bioproducts from microalgae, announced that Bunge Limited (NYSE:BG), a leading global agribusiness and food company, has joined its Series D round as a strategic investor.

The strategic investment represents a foundational step for the two companies to collaborate at critical portions of a new value chain enabled by Solazymea™s sugar to oil technology platform. Bunge is one of the worlda™s largest originators and distributors of vegetable oils and one of the largest sugarcane processing companies in Brazil. aBunge is a world-class organization with enormous expertise and capabilities in many of the markets Solazyme is targeting. Solazymea™s technology sits right at the intersection of Bungea™s substantial access to sugarcane and its key position in the worldwide natural oils markets. This, along with their operational and logistical capabilities, makes Bunge an ideal strategic investor,a said Jonathan Wolfson, CEO and co-founder of Solazyme.

aSolazymea™s renewable oil technology sits strategically between our sugar assets and our vegetable oils market presence and is a natural complement to Bungea™s businesses. We are excited by the potential to join these capabilities for a variety of bulk and high-value end markets which can add flexibility and margin potential to our core businesses,a says Ben Pearcy, Managing Director, Sugar & Bioenergy and Chief Development Officer, Bunge Limited.

Braemer Energy Ventures and Morgan Stanley led Solazymea™s Series D round, with all major existing investors from previous rounds participating, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, The Roda Group, Harris and Harris Group, VantagePoint Venture Partners and Zygote Ventures. Existing strategic investors CTTV Investments LLC, the venture capital arm of Chevron Technology Ventures LLC, and San-Ei Gen, a major Japanese manufacturer and distributor of food ingredients, also participated.

About Solazyme:

Solazyme, Inc. is a renewable oil and bioproducts company and the leader in algal biotechnology. Founded in 2003 and headquartered in South San Francisco, Solazymea™s unique technology allows algae to produce oil and biomaterials in standard fermentation facilities quickly, efficiently and at large scale. These oils and biomaterials are tailored not only for biofuel production, but also as replacements for fossil petroleum and plant oils in a diverse range of products running from clean fuels and chemicals to cosmetics and foods. Solazymea™s oils and fuels provide compelling solutions to increasingly complex issues of fuel scarcity, energy security and environmental impact while fitting cleanly into the pre-existing multi-trillion dollar fuel infrastructure. Solazymea™s investors among others include Braemar Energy Ventures, Harris & Harris Group, Lightspeed VenturePartners, The Roda Group, and VantagePoint Venture Partners. For more information, please visit our website: [ http://www.solazyme.com ]

About Bunge:

Bunge Limited ([ www.bunge.com ], NYSE: BG) is a leading global agribusiness and food company with approximately 32,000 employees in more than 30 countries. Bunge buys, sells, stores and transports oilseeds and grains to serve customers worldwide; processes oilseeds to make protein meal for animal feed and edible oil products for commercial customers and consumers; produces sugar and ethanol from sugarcane; mills wheat and corn to make ingredients used by food companies; and sells fertilizer in North and South America. Founded in 1818, the company is headquartered in White Plains, New York.