A California company is planning to become a major ethanol producer with some new backing. A release this week from Altra, Inc. announced that it has attracted some heavy-hitter investors – private equity firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Omninet Private Equity, LLC and Sage Capital Partners, L.P. along with two leading private equity funds focused on high growth companies in the energy sector — Angeleno Group, LLC and Khosla Ventures.

Founded in 2004, Altra is led by seasoned business leaders and veterans of the biofuels and energy industries. Altra acquires, develops and operates a portfolio of renewable energy projects throughout the United States. Altra is specifically focused on the production and sale of ethanol and biodiesel fuels that can help meet the world’s growing energy demands as it faces shrinking petroleum supplies that come from unstable regions of the globe. Political instability and increased world petroleum consumption have caused a corresponding rapid growth in the global demand for alternative and renewable fuels, which Altra believes will ultimately and permanently alter the dynamics of world energy markets.

Reuters did a story on the Altra plans.