Monthly Archives: May 2009
Top Utilities Grow Solar Power Despite Recession
By John Addison. Today, the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) whose membership includes 110 utilities issued a new report – “2008 Top Ten Utility Solar Integration Rankings” – which identifies the utilities in the U.S. that have the most sol…
California Needs Texas for Cleantech Success
By Joel Serface – May 28, 2009 When I moved from Silicon Valley to Austin in 2006, many of my VC friends were left scratching their heads… Why would someone who has been leading the cleantech charge in California want to move to Texas? After all…
Recent deals
Here are reported cleantech venture deals from the past few weeks, showing that things are still a bit slow but the money is starting to flow into a more diversified mix of sectors:
- GreenRoad, a vendor of fleet driver safety and fuel efficiency monitors, has raised $15mm in “growth funding”, led by DAG Ventures and including return investors Benchmark Capital, Virgin Green Fund, Amadeus Capital Partners and Balderton Capital.
- OutSmart Power Systems, a developer of commercial building energy efficiency systems, has announced a $2mm seed round from Bainco, Clean Energy Venture Group, and Manifold Products.
- Micro fuel cell developer UltraCell announced a $3.8mm insider round, from existing funders BASF Venture Capital GmbH, OnPoint Technologies, Espirito Santo Ventures (ES Ventures) and Miami Valley Venture Fund.
- VentureWire reported on a few fundings that have been discovered through Reg D filings: Arxx Corp. (green building materials) has raised $3mm of a targeted $4.3mm round; Infinia Corp. (solar) has raised $14.1mm of a targeted $50mm debt/rights financing;Tendril Networks (smart grid) has raised $19mm out of a targeted $30mm equity raise; and Renewable Fuel Products (biofuels) has raised $145k.
- SpectraSensors raised a $6mm round of financing from new and existing investors, including Blueprint Ventures, Nth Power, American River Ventures, Nomura Private Equity Investment, and Chevron Technology Venture Investments.
- Wind developer OwnEnergy has added to its Series A with new financing from Clearpoint Ventures and GoGreen Capital.
- Lighting ballast vendor Fulham Inc. has raised $10mm from Braemar.
- Daimler is buying a 10% stake in Tesla. For more information, see any news website anywhere…
- Biogas plant developer agri.capital has raised a EUR60mm round of financing. TCW Group, Inc led the round, alongside existing investors Altima Partners, Green Partners, Halcyon and Ludgate Environmental Fund. agri.capital also raised a EUR10mm mezz debt facility with Ecofin.
- Terralliance, which got in a news a fair bit last month, has raised some new funding and (probably more importantly) converted a large portion of its debt into equity.
- Solar inverter vendor Sustainable Energy Technologies has raised C$1.3mm in a PIPE (note: link opens PDF).
- Germany’s P21, which is developing fuel cell for backup power systems, has raised a EUR10mm round of financing led by Yellow&Blue Investment Management, alongside existing investors Target Partners and Conduit Ventures.
- Madrone Capital Partners has led a $22.5mm round of financing into solar micro inverter company Enphase Energy. New investor Bay Partners also joined the round, which included existing investors Third Point Ventures, RockPort Capital Partners and Applied Ventures.
- Swedish transformer company Hexaformer has raised a EUR3.3mm round of financing from Sustainable Technologies Fund and InnovationsKapital.
- Capricorn Cleantech Fund and GIMV have put EUR1.5mm each into a first round of financing for NovoPolymers NV.
- Deeya Energy raised a $30mm Series C led by Technology Partners, to further their flow battery development efforts.
- ZettaCore raised a $21mm Series C — GreenLight mentioned that part of the proceeds will go toward the development of energy storage applications.
- It’s not a cleantech deal, but still, I thought this report by Cooley Godward (note: opens PDF) was very much worth highlighting, since it does a great job of illustrating the dramatic downtown in venture capital valuations over the past few months, across all stages. Entrepreneurs, take heed…
Other news and notes: If you haven’t seen it already, it’s well worth reading Joel Serface’s piece on his year as an EIR at NREL… Finally, while the WaPo editors are down on the Chevy Volt, this column by Michael just made me jealous!
Mobile Cell Phone Booster – Why Use One?
Nowadays, many individuals are utilizing cell phones in contrast with the landline phone. The reason for this is the fact that cell phones are handy, which means that you have a communication device anywhere you go. However, it has been said by some expert that the signal that these cell phones create can cause brain [...]
Memorial Day and clean energy
For all US based readers, welcome back from the Memorial Day weekend. It’s not just a 3-day weekend, folks. It’s a day of remembrance and thankfulness, first and foremost.
Insofar as cleantech issues impact that, Ian writes passionately about the link between supporting clean energy, supporting energy independence, and supporting our troops. I would add that it’s also important to recognize the role that the US military has played in supporting the development of clean technologies. The military needs renewable distributed generation technologies badly. They have been major supporters of technology developments in everything from advanced motor design to sensors to biofuels to wind power. DARPA grants have been valuable for several companies I’ve backed and evaluated as an investor. In many ways the Department of Defense has been a second Department of Energy for some time now.
Andy Bochman here in the Boston area has been writing a good blog on energy tech matters related to the DoD. Check it out.
A deals update will be coming soon…
Feed-In Tariff = Feeding at Trough?
by Richard T. StuebiOne of the more popular policy prescriptions often made by ardent renewable energy advocates is the adoption of a “feed-in tariff” (FIT). With a FIT, the government sets a price for electricity supplied by a qualifying renewable…
The Efficacy of Biofuels from Algae on Cleantech.org
I usually don’t do this, but a couple of days ago we had a post on Cleantech.org’s Linked In group around algal processes, feedstocks, and the recent DOE solicitation, that engendered a lively discussion, in part taking off from the recent demise of Gr…
What capital efficiency?
Had the pleasure of moderating a very interesting panel at Boston University today on smart grid and energy efficiency, including representatives from the State of Massachusetts, NSTAR, GE, BU, and Millennial Net. Lots of optimism about ongoing pilots and smart grid roll-outs.
And of course, here in this column we’ve talked quite a lot recently about how the cleantech VC community seems to be much more vocal about targeting capital-efficient energy efficiency and smart grid investments these days.
Except that I took a look at the details in the Q1 2009 Cleantech Venture Monitor (another great job by Cleantech Group’s Brian Fan and colleagues), and there’s no evidence yet of such a shift.
In their tally, solar remains the big dog, at almost 35% of all cleantech venture dollars in the quarter. That’s just barely down from the ~38% it captured in Q1 of last year, for example.
Biofuels and transportation (not exactly the poster children for capital efficient investment areas) continue to be other big targets for VC dollars, at ~10% and ~20% respectively.
And where is “smart grid”? At under a 5% share. In the Cleantech Group’s methodology, energy efficiency investments tend to be spread across a number of different categories, but even the “green buildings” category garnered only ~10%, about the same as in Q1 2008.
Will we see VCs start to put their money where their mouths are in upcoming quarters? We’ll just have to wait and see.