Promising young startup Enlighted is powering up with new funds and new customers for its sensor, big data and lighting control tech that can reduce the lighting energy in buildings by 50 to 70 percent. Read more »
We bring you the behind the scenes story of how electric car startup Fisker Automotive spent over a billion dollars, took down a government loan and ultimately delivered about 2,000 cars, a small fraction of what it originally promised. Read more »
One of the most aggressive cleantech investors, VantagePoint Capital Partners, has stopped raising its more recent billion dollar cleantech fund. Why? Lack of interest from limited partners, the investors that put money into VC funds. And that’s been an ongoing trend. Read more »
In contrast to an analyst report this week, I’ve heard that Silver Spring Network’s IPO plans are still on and that the company could go public within the next four weeks. Read more »
Solar installer and financier SolarCity has set the terms for its planned IPO, and plans to sell 10.1 million shares at between $13 and $15 per share. At the midpoint the company would raise $141 million. Read more »
A company that builds mini renewable power stations in rural India just raised more money to expand its reach. You can expect to see more social entrepreneurial projects that aim to bring cleaner sources of energy to poor regions with minimal or no access to electricity. Read more »
GoodGuide, a startup with a ranking system for consumer products based on environmental, health, and social data, has been acquired by a business division of Underwriters Laboratories. Read more »
Biochemical and biofuel companies can no longer rest assured that they can raise money going public. Genomatica has ditched its plans for an IPO, and opted to raise private funding. Solix Biofuels has also raised a new round of private funding. Read more »
The VC exodus away from cleantech startup investing continues. One of Europe’s most well-known venture firms, Index Ventures, has closed a new €350 million fund for early stage companies and Index partner Mike Volpi tells Fortune that the firm is no longer focusing on cleantech investments. Read more »
Solar startup Konarka’s bankruptcy, announced last week, wasn’t just the latest case of the solar industry being hit by the dropping cost of silicon, and cheap modules and panels from China. The company’s technology just “could not compete on cost, efficiency, or lifetime,” says Lux Research. Read more »
Tesla investor Steve Jurvetson — a partner with Draper Fisher Jurvetson — drove off in the very first Model S electric car recently and just published this video and photo to prove it on his Flickr feed. Read more »
Configuration management player Opscode nets $19.5 million in new Series C funding led by Ignition Partners and names Ignition’s John Connors, former Microsoft CFO, to the board. With its cash infusion, Opscode hopes to build its engineering staff and enterprise business. Read more »
Chinese investors and the Chinese government are starting to aggressively fund U.S.-based cleantech startups. There’s been a half dozen of these deals in recent weeks and months, so I thought I’d put together this list to point out the 10 big ones I’ve been watching: Read more »
Using radio waves to efficiently convert solar power — that’s the idea behind startup Array Converter, which spoke for one of the first times this week at the AlwaysOn GoingGreen conference in San Francisco. Read more »
Data center energy efficiency startup Power Assure has raised another $13.5 million to scale up sales of its software that makes data centers more energy efficient. Read more »
It’s rare to find electric lights along the Indian countryside. But a startup called Husk Power Systems is trying to change that. The company has developed biomass miniplants that convert rice husks and grasses into electricity providing power and jobs to the people of rural India. Read more »
SolarCity, which has lined up investors such as Google to finance solar panel installations, is looking for money to run its business operations. The installer is seeking a $42 million round and has bagged about $14.8 million, according to its government filing Friday. Read more »
Smart building startup Scientific Conservation has brought on GE as an investor. While the company announced a Series B round of $15.65 million earlier this year, this morning Scientific Conservation said it has boosted that round to $19 million from GE and Triangle Peak Partners. Read more »
If there is a cleantech investing renaissance coming, I’d bet on the growing team at Silver Lake Kraftwerk to find it. According to Dan Primack at Fortune, Silver Lake has recruited former Draper Fisher Jurvetson cleantech VC Raj Atluru to join its new cleantech fund. Read more »
The tipping points for trends can sometimes turn out to be the most unusual things. For the explosion of electric scooters and motorcycles in China it was . . . SARS. Read more »
Massive electrical equipment giant ABB isn’t a name commonly associated with young startups. But this morning, the company said that it’s invested a small sum through its VC arm into Valley startup Power Assure, which makes an on demand data center power service. Read more »
Get ready to start hearing a whole lot more about stealthy low-power server maker SeaMicro. The under-the-radar company has finally unveiled its server technology that consumes a quarter of the power of a regular server but packs more than 2,000 CPU cores and costs $139,000. Read more »
When the Department of Energy announced that it was awarding 14 data center efficiency projects $47 million this morning, one name piqued my interest: SeaMicro. The stealthy server maker has remained under the radar despite raising at least $10 million from backers like Khosla Ventures, Draper […] Read more »
We’ve heard hardly a peep from BioFuelBox, a 3-year-old biofuel startup backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Element Partners, since it raised its first round of $9.46 million back in 2007. But now the San Jose, Calif.-based quiet company says it’s ready to hit the market […] Read more »
While “the boring stuff,” — permitting and siting solar plants and transmission lines — might cause the biggest hurdles for Oakland, Calif.-based solar thermal startup BrightSource, the company doesn’t seem to have any trouble bringing in big backers. According to the New York Times, BrightSource will […] Read more »
