New England biofuels startup SunEthanol said Tuesday it has raised a first round of funding to develop a process for making cellulosic ethanol using a microbe discovered in the soils near the Quabbin Reservoir of central Massachusetts.

The microorganism, dubbed the “Q Microbe,” is the cornerstone of a one-step process that converts plant and woody biomass directly into ethanol, obviating the need for enzymes, which require more steps and more money, according to Amherst, Massachusetts-based SunEthanol.

“Breaking down cellulosic feedstock in a cost effective way is the big challenge,” said Jason Matlof, a partner at Battery Ventures, which joined in the round after a year-long investigation into cellulosic ethanol technologies. “If you can solve that [then you’ve got] a game-changing technology.”

SunEthanol claims to be one of the first to have that technology, and investors seem to be going for it. The lead investor in the deal is VeraSun Energy Corporation, one of North America’s largest makers of corn-based ethanol. Other backers include Long River Ventures and AST Capital.

Microbes are a growing area of interest in the clean tech sector but are mainly being explored for the production of synthetic fuels from coal or coal-fired plant emissions, according to Jef Sharp, SunEthanol’s chief executive.

Although the six-person startup wouldn’t disclose the amount of funding it has received, it said it would use the money to fund lab work over the next year to develop the process – so far proven in lab beakers – for larger-scale ethanol production.

The microbe, Clostridium phytofermentans, was discovered in part by University of Massachusetts microbiologist Susan Leschine, also chief scientist and co-founder of SunEthanol.

“There are ways to make the microbe perform better,” Mr. Sharp said. “Right now it makes ethanol, but it doesn’t make enough to be commercially viable. This funding will help us get to the point where the amount of ethanol that is being produced by the microbe is economically competitive.”

Mr. Sharp said the microbe-based technology, which is being licensed from the University of Massachusetts, offers several advantages over the enzyme-based processes being developed by other cellulosic ethanol companies. Not only does the process have the potential to be 25 percent cheaper than enzyme-based technologies, it might also work with multiple feedstocks, Mr. Sharp said. Processes that use enzymes to break down biomass into sugars need to be re-engineered or modified for different feedstocks, he said.

Another advantage stems from the so-called Q Microbe’s natural origins. “It’s naturally occurring so it’s going to have that stability of an organism that’s naturally occurring, as opposed to one that’s genetically engineered,” Mr. Sharp said. “An organism [that] is genetically engineered hasn’t survived in the wild for millions of years so there are more variables to work.”