Alternative Biofuels Expert is Named to Proterro Board of Directors

PRINCETON, NJ--May 24, 2011: Proterro, Inc., the developer of Protose, a fermentation-ready sugar feedstock that will enable economical production of biofuels and chemicals, has named to its Board of Directors Douglas C. Cameron, founder and managing director of Alberti Advisors LLC.

“Doug has been very active in the biofuels industry”

Calling on dual strengths and deep experience in both clean technology and agriculture, Cameron created his Plymouth, Minn.-based firm in 2010 to focus on opportunities and challenges where the two intersect.

Prior to establishing the venture advisory and assistance firm, he was managing director and chief science advisor at Piper Jaffray [NYSE: PJC], one of the world’s leading investment banks in the area of clean technology. There, he was responsible for helping build the firm’s Clean Technology & Renewables sector, including the ethanol/biofuels subsector.

Previously, Cameron had been chief scientific officer (CSO) at Khosla Ventures, one of the premier venture capital firms in clean technology investments. As CSO, he led technical due diligence for many of the firm’s clean tech investments, and served on the boards of directors for a number of them, including Gevo, Inc. [NASDAQ: GEVO], a renewable chemicals and advanced biofuels company, and Mascoma Corporation, a producer of cellulosic ethanol, on whose scientific advisory board he continues to sit, among others.

From 1998 through mid-2006 Cameron was at Cargill, Inc., an international producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products and services, for which he built and led Cargill’s corporate biotechnology research group and spearheaded the company’s biotech activities in China.

“Doug has been very active in the biofuels industry,” said Proterro CEO Kef Kasdin, who noted that in 2009 Cameron was the recipient of the prestigious Raphael Katzen Award for his contribution to furthering the deployment and commercialization of biotechnology to produce fuels and chemicals from renewable resources. “His expertise, industry connections and commitment will be invaluable to us as we progress.”

“‘Cheap’ sugar is the key to fueling biofuels-industry growth,” said Cameron, who chairs the industrial advisory board for the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center and sits on the board of the Bioenergy Research Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

“What Proterro has already achieved on its path to developing an economical non-agriculture-based, fortified sucrose feedstock is impressive and I am eager to participate and explore the possibilities and potential close up,” he said.

Cameron graduated magna cum laude from Duke University with a B.S.E. degree in biomedical engineering and earned a Ph.D. in biochemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

About Proterro

Proterro seeks to remove the largest barrier to market adoption of biofuels, which is the combined cost of cultivation, harvest, transport and processing of feedstock. Proterro’s patent-pending biosynthetic process combines an engineered photosynthetic microorganism with an advanced high-density, modular solid-phase bioreactor to provide a low-cost, fermentation-ready fortified sucrose, called Protose. Produced by combining only water, carbon dioxide, sunlight and nutrients in the biosynthetic process, Protose is projected to cost significantly less than Brazilian sugarcane and cellulosic feedstocks. Protose can be used to produce a variety of commercial scale fuels and chemicals through standard industrial fermentation methods. Proterro has completed microorganism genetic engineering for the biosynthetic process, has developed a working model bioreactor system, and has demonstrated high sucrose productivity with its process. The company plans to partner with ethanol producers to provide an alternative feedstock to their fermentation processes and with other biofuels and chemicals producers who seek low-cost sugar feedstock. Founded in 2008, the company is backed by Battelle Ventures and Braemar Energy Ventures. For more information, please visit Proterro