Incitor will receive $1.5 million in funding from an investment group led by the Cottonwood Technology Fund to finance a 15,000-30,000/year demonstration facility.

Dr. John Elling, chief executive of Incitor, added: "Cottonwood's support will enable Incitor to rapidly commercialise its unique biofuel and biochemical production processes."

The company’s low-temperature chemical process breaks down almost any biomass from agricultural, solid, woody or algal waste to create commodity petrochemical replacements, specialty bio-based chemicals, and Incitor’s third generation biofuel, Alestron, which is compatible with both gasoline and diesel, and two-cycle engine fuels.

Incitor claims that this technology will allow biofuel production at about $2/gallon, while also reducing the production cost of important industrial chemicals such as levulinates, formates, and proprionates by about 80%.

"We believe Incitor's unique low cost chemistry brings new economics to the biofuels and biochemicals industries,” said David Blivin, managing director of Cottonwood Technology Fund. “In addition, their inclusion of alcohols (methanol and ethanol) in their synthetic process creates interesting opportunities to create higher value products from ethanol and natural gas."

Cottonwood Technology Fund is an early-stage technology commercialisation fund with offices in El Paso, Texas, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. It aims to cultivate the entrepreneurial community of the Paso del Norte region running along the Rio Grande River from Los Alamos, New Mexico, to El Paso, Texas.

Incitor specialises in turning renewable waste biomass into valuable products, such as fuel, additives, petrochemical replacements and specialty chemicals.