Capstone Partners, advised Novvi, a leading manufacturer of base oils and lubricants, on a 33.3% equity investment from American Refining Group (ARG), a joint venture of Amyris and Cosan. Both Amyris and Cosan will continue to hold share ownership stakes in Novvi, together with ARG.
This agreement is the first of several we expect this year where we are divesting from non-core marketing activity, while remaining key technology developers and producers of high-performance chemistry.
Novvi develops, produces, markets, and distributes high-performance oils and lubricants from renewable sources. Novvi draws from the strength of both companies, applying Amyris’ synthetic biology platform to produce targeted hydrocarbon molecules from plant sugar and Cosan’s feedstock capabilities and supply and distribution infrastructure.
Base oils are not a tiny market by any means. The global markets for base oils and lubricants are expected to reach $42 billion and $70 billion in size, respectively, by 2020, according to Amyris.
