Sacramento Startup Micromidas Raises Series A Round

Micromidas has just completed its first major round of funding, having raised $3.6 million. The funds will be used to deploy their technology at the pilot scale.

Micromidas, based in West Sacramento, develops and scales environmentally benign biological and chemical processes that produce valuable chemical and material commodities from waste biomass. The first Micromidas application for their technology is scaling a process that converts the carbon in organic wastewater into PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate), a family of bio-degradable plastics that can be used in lieu of conventional petroleum plastics. Their process generates highly functional bio-plastic while simultaneously reducing the quantity of bio-solids that municipal utilities must pay to treat.  Micromidas is led by CEO and founder, John Bissell,  who received his degree in chemical engineering from UC Davis; his entire team are also UC Davis graduates.

If you’ve ever met John you will understand that his passion, focus, determination, and hard work, as well as Micromidas’ huge business potential, were the key factors in launching the company, and raising the money, initially from family, friends and angels, and then from a group of sophisticated investors.

There are some lessons here for aspiring entrepreneurs. John used every resource available to learn about the process of financing a high growth company, including many regional ones. He was inspired by the UC Davis Green TEA Academy which he attended in 2008 at Incline Village (UCD offers multiple versions of its Entrepreneurship Academy). Following the Academy, he found mentors among the Sierra Angels and others and then entered the 2009 California Cleantech Open, where Micromidas won in the Air, Water and Waste group. This created substantial publicity for the company and provided more mentors, and a network of interested supporters, something many entrepreneurs neglect and fail to build.

Along the way, he sought and received advice from VentureStart and local startup CEO’s, and was invited to and attended angel group dinners to get further insight into the ins and outs of raising money. In the entire process, we are sure that, while much of the advice was valid, it varied considerably from mentor to mentor and source to source. That’s the nature of getting a startup going; there is no absolutely right or wrong process; the entrepreneur listens, distills and then decides the best path for his or her company. And in the process they build and communicate with their network, never really knowing the path any lead will take. For Micromidas, that network worked out very well.

Congratulations to Micromidas and John!