Bill Gates Goes Green with Algae Fuel Investment in Sapphire

Cascade Investments, Bill Gates‘ pet VC firm — which for reasons inexplicable has no presence on the information superhighway — has ponied-up a fat wad of cash for “green crude” producer, San Diego, Calif.,-based Sapphire Energy. Back in May, Sapphire announced that it could produce renewable 91 octane gasoline made from algae.

Cascade wasn’t the only investor in Sapphire’s Series B round; ARCH Venture Partners, Britain’s Wellcome Trust and the Rockefellers’ Venrock, also answered the call. The total? A tidy $100 million.

Sapphire’s end goal, said the company, is to produce “high-value hydrocarbons chemically identical to those in gasoline” that will be “entirely compatible with the current energy infrastructure from cars to refineries and pipelines.” The company hopes that the new investment help it achieve a production capacity of 10,000 barrels per day of its green crude.

Where Bill Gates bets, others are bound to bet, too.