Can an open PR strategy help you get funding?

I was listening to my favorite Renewable Energy podcast the other day and this particular episode was about the algae biofuel market. One comment from the podcast editor, Stephen Lacey, caught my attention:

In an industry full of companies not willing or ready to speak to reporters, Solazyme has actively engaged the press.

The reason this stood out to me was that I had heard a lot of other news about Solazyme lately and it was about how much money they had raised. According to this article, the San Francisco-based company recently raised $45.4m through a number of private investors after it announced last month that its algae-based fuel has passed the jet fuel requirements set by the American Society for Testing and Materials. And this was in a quarter when all algae biofuel companies raised a total of $150 million.

So almost a third of the funding went to the one company who was willing to talk to the press. Is there a lesson here for companies that need funding about how PR can help?