Battery startup Aquion Energy is raising another round of $35 million from Bill Gates and other new and existing investors. The company has been planning to build a factory in Pennsylvania that can produce its low cost power grid batteries. Read more »
Smart grid company Silver Spring Networks saw its shares soar almost 30 percent in morning trading on its public debut on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock is settling around $21 per share, up from a pricing of $17 per share. Read more »
Silver Spring Network’s IPO could be as early as Wednesday (yep tomorrow). It’s been a year and a half since Silver Spring first filed to go public. Read more »
Pocket, the web-content-saving company formerly known as Read It Later, has raised $5 million in a Series B funding round and will use the money to expand its platform. The company now has nearly six million users. Read more at paidContent »
Investors may not be so keen to put money into solar manufacturing these days, but they are pumping quite a bit of money into the solar retail sector. Sunrun is benefitting from this investor sentiment and announced Wednesday that it’s raised a $60 million in equity. Read more »
Azure Power will be building one of India’s first megawatt-scale rooftop solar projects that will put solar panels on dozens of rooftops and share revenues from power sales with building owners. Read more »
Grid battery startup Aquion Energy announced on Tuesday that it plans to build a factory in Pennsylvania and begin production of its sodium batteries starting in 2013. Read more »
A lack of progress for battery technology is (arguably) the single biggest barrier for gadgets, electric vehicles, and the power grid. But there’s hundreds of researchers, entrepreneurs, universities and large companies working on battery breakthroughs. Here’s 25 you should know about: Read more »
Vineeth Vijayaraghavan is the founder and editor of a site focused on cleantech in India, Panchabuta, and here’s what he’s been watching, reading, and writing about this week: Read more »
Aquion Energy, which is developing a low-cost battery for the power grid made from sodium and water, has closed $20 million of a planned $30 million round and has brought on investor Foundation Capital in addition to existing investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Read more »
Silver Spring Networks filed for a potentially $150 million IPO this week, but the group that stands to gain in the short term is Silver Spring’s stead fast venture backer Foundation Capital. Foundation Capital owned 41.5 percent of shares before the offering. Read more »
Power conversion startup Transphorm has added yet another high-profile investor to its list of backers: George Soros’ investment fund Quantum Strategic Partners. On Thursday Transphorm announced that it has raised another $25 million from Quantum Strategic Partners, as well as existing investors. Read more »
GE has unveiled the second winners of its smart grid challenge, this time focused on home energy. GE says along with its VC partners, it’s investing another $63 million — of its $200 million fund — into 10 companies and giving $100,000 awards to 5 more. Read more »
When it comes to clean-energy investing 2.0, venture capitalists are beyond looking for the silver bullet — or the magic battery –- they spent the last decade hunting and hoping for. Today, VCs are more likely to invest their dollars in slightly less ambitious energy-efficiency projects. Read more »
The smart grid has one of the hottest acquisition markets in cleantech right now, and at our third annual Green:Net event on April 21 in San Francisco, we’re bringing together the pieces of the smart grid M&A ecosystem. Read more »
In the midst of a seeming malaise around cleantech venture investing emerges a bright spot of news: Private equity firm Silver Lake is launching a clean energy fund with investment from George Soros, and led by dream team Adam Grosser and Cathy Zoi. Read more »
Here comes the biggest cleantech startup launch since Bloom Energy: Transphorm has emerged from stealth at Google Ventures’s headquarters, touting an energy efficient power conversion module and an enviable $38 million in venture capital from Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Foundation Capital, and Lux Capital. Read more »
It’s been a long year and a half since Cleantech Blog published its last Cleantech Blog Power 5 highlighting the top investors in cleantech. . . And the bottom five wild cards. Time for round two. Read more »
Last month, General Electric announced that it would be taking submissions from inventors and entrepreneurs seeking a piece of a $200 million smart grid investment fund. Now GE says it has received 950 submissions from around the world. Read more »
GE announces a $200 million fund for smart grid innovation along with an electric vehicle charger called the Watt Station and a home energy device called the Nucleus. Read more »
What will be the killer applications of the smart grid? Wouldn’t we all like to know, but we’re offering Earth2Tech readers a chance to peer into the closest thing we’ve got to a crystal ball. On Thursday morning (starting at 9:30AM PST) we’ll be featuring a […] Read more »
On the morning of January 28, we’re holding an exclusive event at our office in San Francisco that will take a close look at the next generation of smart grid applications. Here’s the idea: Now that smart grid infrastructure is being built out, what new applications […] Read more »
From the ownership to the user experience to the embarrassing way the site fell flat on its face at launch, there are plenty of reasons to believe Vevo might not end up being the revolutionary force that Bono thinks it will be. But if there’s one […] Read more »
Highlighting the increased interest in green construction this year, green-building materials company Serious Materials announced on Tuesday that it has raised $60 million in its third round of funding. The round represents one of the largest U.S. venture-capital deals –- and the largest energy-efficiency deal –- […] Read more »
The idea behind vertically integrated companies is that each of its subsidiaries produces a part of the value-chain that, when connected together, delivers a stronger force. Think of steel barons owning mines, mills and railways, or American Apparel controlling production, distribution and marketing. For the smart […] Read more »
