LanzaTech of New Zealand has indicated that it is planning to move its business to North America.

The firm is known to have links with US President Barack Obama's re-election campaign manager. The company has received $14.2 million in taxpayer funding with GSR since September 2005. The company has said that it is planning to move 30 employees from New Zealand.

The firm is planning to move its research and development (R&D) centre to a new hub in Illinois. The company will invest more than $19.9 million in the new facility. LanzaTech focuses on carbon-rich waste gases from large industrial operations including steel plants and it uses microbes to recycle the waste gas.

The company has been growing since its establishment about nine years earlier. The company raised $69 million in private sector funding. The company has become the low-carbon fuel partner for Sir Richard Branson's airline Virgin Atlantic.

The company has also become the world's first company to have its jet fuel certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomass. The World Economic Forum also included LanzaTech in an elite group of firms "set to have a significant impact on business and society" in its 2012 Technology Pioneers awards.