Ze-gen, Inc. Secures $4.5 Million in Series A Funding

Ze-gen, Inc., a clean energy company providing advanced gasification technology to convert municipal waste streams into synthetic natural gas and low emissions electrical energy, recently announced that it closed its Series A financing with $4.5 million of additional funding. Flagship Ventures led the financing and was joined by VantagePoint Venture Partners. Jim Matheson, General Partner, Flagship Ventures, and Scott Brown, Managing Director, VantagePoint Venture Partners will join the Ze-Gen Board of Directors.

”Ze-gen is at the forefront of global efforts to convert the energy content found in ordinary waste streams into clean renewable and distributed energy, greatly reducing the need for incineration or land filling. This is a very exciting technology at a time when municipalities throughout the world are struggling to find sensible, environmentally sustainable solutions to both solid waste management and distributed energy generation. Ze-gen has made significant progress in a few short years and we look forward to participating in their future successes,” said Jim Matheson, General Partner of Flagship Ventures.

Solid waste is a global problem with lasting effects. In the United States alone, over 350 million tons of municipal-waste are created each year, with 300 million tons ending up in landfills. Once there, this waste converts into approximately 580 million tons of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas, of which a majority is methane, a substance 22 times more harmful to the environment than CO2 itself. Ze-gen offers an economically viable and environmentally superior alternative to traditional landfills and incineration processes through its ability to create clean power with an enormous supply of free fuel.

“In Flagship and VantagePoint, we have found partners with proven track records in helping to evolve transformative ideas into companies that become important category leaders. Ze-gen’s substantial progress to date is further validated by their investment and will benefit from their future involvement. This funding will allow us to accelerate engineering and market development efforts in preparation for launching our initial full-scale commercial projects targeted for launch in 2008,” said Bill Davis, Ze-gen’s CEO and President.

Ze-gen raised its initial $2.25 million of seed financing in 2006 from a syndicate led by Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation (MTDC). Ze-gen is commissioning its initial large-scale demonstration facility in New Bedford, MA on July 23, 2007 and is targeting construction and operation of distributed Ze-gen commercial facilities beginning in 2008.

Ze-gen was founded in mid-2004 to develop and deploy advanced gasification technology which converts municipal waste streams into energy and other beneficial products such as synthetic natural gas with virtually zero emissions. In addition to the environmental problems associated with conventional means of waste disposal, there is considerable energy content in ordinary waste streams such as construction and demolition debris and municipal solid waste. Industry data suggests that in the United States alone, over 50,000 megawatts of latent energy potential in waste streams which are routinely landfilled. Ze-gen is poised to be the market leader in the environmentally friendly re-purposing of these waste streams into renewable energy.

For more information, please visit www.ze-gen.com