KIWI CLEAN TECH COMPANY HEAD PROMOTES BIOTECH

DR SEAN SIMPSON, founder of LanzaTech, one of New Zealand’s most successful biotech companies, was here recently attending key board meetings for the next wave of Kiwi success stories.

Simpson, whose company developed processes to turn waste carbon into fuels, also spoke at the Angel Association New Zealand annual summit in Blenheim.

BiotechNZ executive director Zahra Champion says Simpson, now based in Chicago, spoke about the tremendous depth of experience and belief in New Zealanders’ ability to change the world.

“LanzaTech has just joined BiotechNZ and Sean was also down here as a director of rising New Zealand tech companies Avertana and Dotterel.”

Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic has been working with LanzaTech for some years to produce jet fuel made from carbon waste gases. Earlier this year one of its Boeing 747s completed a transAtlantic flight using fuel made from recycled waste carbon emissions.

Avertana, headed by Sean Molloy and based in Auckland, has developed a novel industrial process to turn waste into a range of valuable raw materials, with nothing left over.

Dotterel has developed noise cancellation technology for drones.

“While LanzaTech shifted their headquarters to Chicago in 2014 the company remains a Kiwi business at its core with the ownership of the patents and licences being held by LanzaTech New Zealand,” Champion explains.

“It’s exciting to see LanzaTech giving back to the Kiwi biotech community. There are huge opportunities for biotech to be part of the solutions for our global challenges.”

According to the recently released 2018 TIN100 report, New Zealand’s top 200 tech exporters grew their revenues by 11 percent and profitability by 38 percent in the past year.”