Ready for some genetically altered algae in your Dove soap or Ben & Jerry's ice cream?
South San Francisco biofuel company Solazyme has struck a deal with British conglomerate Unilever to manufacture 3 million gallons of algae-based oil for the multinational whose brands include Dove and Ben & Jerry's.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but it's a big one for Solazyme, which started out 10 years ago producing jet and automobile fuel from algae and has since expanded into food and cosmetics with its "microalgae" additives.
"This supply agreement reflects a deepening strategic relationship between Solazyme and Unilever, and is an important step in transitioning us to a full commercial entity," said CEO Jonathan Wolfson.
In addition to Dove and Ben & Jerry's, Unilever brands include Pond's, Caress and Noxzema in the personal care category, and Hellmann's, Lipton and Breyers in the food department. The "tailored oils," targeted initially at Unilever's beauty products, are the first to be produced on a commercial scale at Solazyme's sugarcane processing facility in Brazil.
The company's own line of algae-infused cosmetics, including an antiaging ingredient called alguronic acid, have been sold in Sephora stores since 2011 under the Algenist label. (Its newest antiaging product was featured in The Chronicle's Style section on Sunday.)
"We believe that Solazyme's tailored oils technology can provide sustainable competitive advantage across many categories and brands, and we view this agreement as just the beginning of the commercial phase of our relationship," said David Blanchard, Unilever's top R&D executive.
Solazyme, which counts Unilever among its early investors, along with Chevron Technology Ventures and San Bruno's VantagePoint Venture Partners, went public in 2011.
The company reported $11 million in revenue in its most recent quarter, down 17 percent from the same quarter last year.
Profits are a ways off, but most analysts rate the stock a "buy." It closed up 7.37 percent, to $11.51, on the Nasdaq Wednesday.
Next stage: The good news: Investment in California's clean-tech industry has tripled in the past 10 years. The not-so-good: It has yet to recover from the post-2011 swoon.
A total of $4.8 billion has been invested in the sector since the first half of 2003, but there have been notable percentage declines.
Put that down to a "hype cycle similar to the Internet 'hype cycle' of the mid-to-late 1990s," according to a report released Wednesday by Next 10, a San Francisco economic and environmental research firm.
"You see investors jumping into the market, but the market can only sustain so much before we see some individuals pull back," said Next 10's founder, F. Noel Perry.
The decline matches falloffs in global clean-tech investment - down by one-third in the same period, according to reports this year.
One sign of change, according to Next 10, is the increased amount of money coming from corporate investors as opposed to traditional venture capitalists. "Of the $2.6 billion of clean-tech venture capital investment in 2012 in California, $1.45 billion included corporate investors," such as the venture arms of Google, Intel, General Electric and Siemens.
"Corporations provide strategic market power, longer-term investment horizons, critical investment capital, and access to customers in existing markets," said Doug Henton, CEO of Collaborative Economics in San Mateo, which wrote the report.
There is also more investment focus on later-stage deployment of existing technology, rather than "development and growth" startups, says the report. "This maturing of the market is why we need to expand our view of investment in the sector to include more than just VC, as deployment becomes increasingly important," Perry said.
Andrew S. Ross is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: bottomline@sfchronicle.com Blog: www.sfgate.com/blogs/ bottomline Facebook: sfg.ly/doACKM Twitter: @andrewsross