Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Announces Greentech Investment in Altra Inc. and $100,000 KPCB Prize for Green Innovation

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Announces Greentech Investment in Altra Inc. and $100,000 KPCB Prize for Green Innovation

May 19, 2006

Launches Greentech Innovation Network for Green Policy and Technology Entrepreneurs

    SAN FRANCISCO, May 19 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) -- a leader in
providing venture and relationship capital SM services --
announced an investment in biofuel leader Altra Inc.
(Altra) and the new KPCB Prize for Green Innovation as part
of KPCB's "Greentech initiative."

    "Altra is a national leader in ethanol
production," said John Doerr, KPCB partner.  "Its
unique, proprietary technology and strong, passionate team
make it a sustainable, high-impact business.  Altra is
creating a nationwide ethanol production footprint by
acquiring and `speeding up' existing, traditional
corn-to-ethanol plants and by `starting up' new
ones."

    Based in Los Angeles, California, Altra has signed a
definitive agreement to acquire California's largest
operating ethanol plant.

    "We've known Larry Gross, Altra's CEO, for a long
time," said KPCB partner John Denniston, who serves on
Altra's board.  "Larry's leadership and exceptional
team will make a big difference in bringing ethanol to
consumers.  Altra's team has over 100 years of combined
experience in producing ethanol, and will bring important
innovations to the industry."

    "KPCB's commitment to and leadership in Greentech
makes them an extremely helpful and well-networked
investor," Gross said.  "We share a common goal
of innovating to create new, green sources of energy.  We
believe Altra's strategy and national footprint enables us
to better serve consumers than smaller, local
competitors."

    Altra has invested in five biofuels plants, which will
have the capacity to produce 175 million gallons of ethanol
and 80 million gallons of biodiesel each year.  The total
financing of over $50 million included funding from KPCB,
The Angeleno Group, Khosla Ventures, Omninet Private Equity
and Sage Capital Partners.  

    KPCB also announced the KPCB Prize for Green
Innovation, a $100,000 annual prize awarded for the best
technology or policy innovation in Greentech.  A panel of
five independent judges will select and announce the first
winner in this fall.

    "This award will encourage innovation in
sustainable, green growth," said KPCB partner Brook
Byers.  "We will bring worldwide recognition to
entrepreneurs who achieve breakthroughs in green energy
generation, storage, conservation or policies, whether from
an individual or a team, whether public or private, anywhere
in the world."

    KPCB today inaugurates the Greentech Innovation Network
with 50 of the world's leading entrepreneurs, scientists and
policymakers.  They are gathering from the United States,
Asia, Europe and South America to build a strategic map for
evaluating needs and encouraging innovation, and to forge
new partnerships.  Insights from Pulitzer Prize-winning New
York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a
"geo-green", will keynote the networking event. 


    KPCB partner Bill Joy will lead a series of
inspirational talks by four green thought leaders: Dr.
Frances Arnold, California Institute of Technology
professor; Dr. Jose Goldemberg, Environmental Secretary of
Sao Paulo, Brazil and Universidade de Sao Paulo professor;
Dr. R.K. Pachauri, UN Global International Panel of Climate
Change Chairman and Director General of The Energy and
Resources Institute; and Dr. Martha Symko-Davies, National
Renewable Energy Laboratory Senior Project Leader. 

    "Three huge trends are driving our Greentech
agenda," Doerr explained.  "First, urbanization
is the largest trend on the planet.  Four billion people
will move into megacities in the next 50 years, and they
all want green transportation, water, and energy.  Second,
climate change and global warming are accelerating at
alarming rates.  And third, we are addicted to oil, funding
both sides of the war on terrorists, weakening democracy and
our economy and damaging the environment.  We must change
our policies and practices and accelerate innovation.  The
KPCB Greentech Innovation Network is an ongoing initiative
for collaboration among the world's best innovators."


    "We have been quietly investing in Greentech for
several years," added Ray Lane, KPCB partner. 
"We've backed four new ventures since announcing our
Greentech initiative in February of this year.  These,
together with five previous ventures, are innovating for
green and sustainable growth.  We're seeing more and more
entrepreneurs address critical environmental needs.  This
workshop is not a conference, it is a networking event to
`help solve the problem' by collaborating in five Greentech
areas.  They are electricity generation and storage,
electricity efficiency, alternative fuels, transportation
efficiency and carbon reduction policies."

    KPCB has previously announced investments in
Lilliputian Systems, which produces micro fuel cells for
portable and wireless devices, and Miasole (
http://www.miasole.com ), which makes a flexible, low-cost
photovoltaic cell for large-scale solar energy.  Six other
Greentech ventures are in stealth mode.  

    About Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

    Since its founding in 1972, KPCB has backed
entrepreneurs in over 
450 ventures, including AOL, Align Technology, Amazon.com,
Citrix, Compaq Computer, Electronic Arts, Genentech,
Genomic Health, Google, IDEC Pharmaceuticals, Intuit,
Juniper Networks, Netscape, Lotus, LSI Logic, Sun
Microsystems, Symantec, VeriSign and Xilinx. More than 150
of the firm's portfolio companies have gone public.  Many
other ventures have achieved success through mergers and
acquisitions.  Additional information can be found at
http://www.kpcb.com/greentech .

    About Altra Inc. 

    Formed in 2004 as Malibu Capital Partners, Inc., Altra
acquires and develops a portfolio of renewable energy
projects.  They are specifically focused on the production
and sale of ethanol and biodiesel.  Altra intends to become
the leading integrated biofuels company in the United
States, employing state-of-the-art manufacturing,
processing technologies and customer service disciplines as
a key biofuels supplier to petroleum companies and other
significant end-users. For more information, visit
http://www.altrabiofuels.com . 

    For more information, please contact:

     Jennifer Graham 
     Tel:   [phone]
     Email: [e-mail]

     John Denniston 
     Tel:   [phone]
     Email: [e-mail]

SOURCE  Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers