Nikesh Parekh, the former vice president of consumer marketing at HouseValues, has landed a fresh round of capital for a Seattle biofuels company called Bio Architecture Lab, according to a SEC filing.

The company’s Web site offers little detail about its plans, but a short description on The Washington Life Science directory describes it as "a pioneer in the use of synthetic biology and computational enzyme design to develop novel specialty chemicals produced from renewable sources."

A job description for the company — which is located in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood — says that it is addessing global warming and dependence on fossil fuels.

"Our biofuels are cost-effective and equivalent to gasoline in use, but are produced from renewable carbon sources," the company writes in the description. 

The company could not be reached for comment today.

According to a regulatory filing, the company secured $3.3 million of a $6 million venture round on July 14. Participants in the deal included Michael Borrus of Silicon Valley’s X/Seed Capital.

John Cook is co-founder of TechFlash. Follow him on Twitter @johnhcook.

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and The top 10 best (and worst) CEOs and companies in Seattle  

Perhaps it helps to own the survey company — or at least a portion of it. Zillow.com and its Chief Executive Rich Barton came out on top of a new survey conducted by Glassdoor.com, one that attempts to rank the best (and worst) CEOs in the region as well as the best companies to work for.

The folks at Glassdoor.com assure me that Barton — an early investor in the Sausalito startup – didn’t manipulate the rankings. A spokeswoman tells TechFlash that it was "just a coincidence" that Barton and Zillow came out on top.

The survey scores Zillow with a positive rating of 4.3. And it shows that Barton had an 80 percent approval rating among employees, and a 10 percent disapproval rating.

Only F5 Networks’ John McAdam fared better, with an 89 percent approval rating and no one who apparently dislikes him.

 

Others companies that performed well were REI, Microsoft and Waggener Edstrom.

But now for the nitty gritty stuff. Which companies and CEOs fared poorly.

Zones topped that unfortunate list, with a score of 2.4 and CEO Firoz Lalji getting a 50 disapproval rating.

Other Northwest CEOs whose disapproval ratings overpowered their approval ratings were Safeco’s Paula Reynolds (75 percent disapproval rating); Frank Blethen of The Seattle Times (42 percent disapproval) and RealNetworks’ Rob Glaser (49 percent disapproval).

Unfortunately for Glaser, he also appeared in Glassdoor’s list of top 50 lowest rated CEOs. He was the only Northwest CEO to get that dubious honor, with Office Depot’s Steve Odland, LexisNexis’ Andy Prozes and United Airlines’ Glenn Tilton listed as the worst rated. (All had approval ratings under 10 percent.)

Not one Seattle CEO made it in the top 50, which included Steve Jobs of Apple, Eric Schmidt of Google and Reed Hastings of Netflix.  

Glassdoor certainly will catch some flack about the list and its methodology. (For the national list, only CEOs with more than 50 employee reviews were considered while the Seattle list was based on 10 reviews or more).

But that’s something that Barton is accustomed to, since Zillow’s online home valuation tool often has been the subject of harsh criticism.

 

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and Chris Anderson on Google vs. Microsoft in the ‘Free’ economy  

Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson, author of "The Long Tail," is in the Seattle region to promote his new book, "Free." He spoke yesterday at Amazon.com and he’s at Microsoft this afternoon.

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Cracked Kindle prompts lawsuit versus Amazon.com  

A Seattle man is suing Amazon.com after the Kindle he purchased for his wife’s birthday unexpectedly cracked. The class action suit — filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle Tuesday – alleges that Amazon.com failed to disclose that the Kindle breaks when used in conjunction with a leather cover case.

Plaintiff Matthew Geise along with his wife, Alisa Brodkowitz, said they started noticing cracks on the Kindle screen after about three months. The $359 device — which Geise purchased on Valentine’s day – then froze on July 6. 

The suit lists several complaints from other Kindle users who posted similar issues on chat boards. Wrote one:

“This has happened to me now, too. Unfortunately, Amazon is not being so responsive. First they told me the problem was due to ‘customer use patterns.’ I asked, ‘You mean, like, reading?’ Now they are offering to send me a new kindle for a $200 ‘service fee.’ This is not good. Not good at all.”

The sum value of the matter exceeds $5 million, according to the lawsuit. The suit notes:

Amazon engaged in an unfair or deceptive act or practice by failing to disclose the true nature of the Kindle’s performance when installed in a Kindle Cover, including the inadequacies in manufacturing, design and material composition, the absence of testing to support the warranty, and that the Kindle cracks, breaks, and fails prematurely.

Amazon’s unfair or deceptive acts or practices have occurred in its trade or business, and were and are capable of deceiving a substantial portion of the public…. Amazon’s conduct has injured the property of Plaintiff and the other Class Members, in that these consumers purchased Kindles that either have cracked and failed or will crack and fail prematurely, causing them to use the loose the use and value of their Kindles or expend monies to repair or replace them

Hat tip to The Seattle Times, which reports that the issue revolves around whether the Kindle cover was installed incorrectly. Brodkowitz tells the newspaper that she didn’t open the cover incorrectly. Amazon.com could not be reached for comment this morning.

Here’s a copy of the lawsuit.

UPDATE: Here’s Amazon.com’s official response:

"We do not comment on active litigation.  Nevertheless, we encourage anyone who has an issue with the cover attachment mechanism to return the cover and device for a free replacement so we can investigate further."

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