Achates Power, a clean diesel engine startup, funded by Sequoia
Investments in clean-burning combustion engines are picking up, as VCs bet that batteries and exotic fuels like hydrogen won’t be the end of the story for powering automobiles.
The latest is Achates Power, a San Diego, Calif. startup working on a clean diesel. Although details are thin, the company’s website promises to create “new benchmarks in fuel economy and power density.”
Constructing a new type of engine is a risky bet, relying not only on the ability of a small team of engineers to quickly work out all the kinks, but also on a market that has changed little in decades to adopt a totally new type of equipment.
However, diesel engines have a number of advantages over spark-ignition engines, the kind typically used in American passenger vehicles. Those include a greater efficiency, more torque and lower emissions of some gases, including CO2.
A design that tackled the remaining problems — including higher weight and the toxic soot diesel engines tend to produce — would have a shot at capturing a vast market. Khosla Ventures also recently bet on a diesel motor maker called EcoMotors, which has many of the same aims as Achates.
The investment in Achates was reported by VentureWire (subscription required). Besides Sequoia Capital, investing firms included Rockport Capital Partners, Interwest Partners and Madrone Capital Partners.
Next Story: Widget companies are growing, helped by Facebook
Previous Story: Satoris raises $5M, preps Alzheimer’s test for research use
About the Author, Chris Morrison
Chris Morrison writes about cleantech and environmental issues for VentureBeat, with occasional forays into gaming and semantic technology. He got his start writing about tech for Business 2.0 magazine, but quickly realized new media was the ticket when that institution closed its doors in 2007. Chris has also covered public equities and regulatory issues. He originally hails from southern Virginia, graduated from Evergreen State College in Washington, and now lives in San Francisco.