The father of the LED is now looking to revolutionize the industry he created. On Tuesday startup Soraa unveiled its first LED bulb that can replace a halogen lamp, and showed off the company’s secret sauce. Read more »
Next-gen biofuel company KiOR has long planned to raise more money to get its first commercial-scale biofuel facilities off the ground. On Friday morning the company revealed that it has raised a new $75 million loan from existing investors Alberta Investment Management and Khosla Ventures. Read more »
Asia, with its rapidly growing number of car owners and large pollution problems, could very well be the biggest market for biofuels and green chemicals one day. LanzaTech, which announced Monday it has raised $55.8 million, is certainly finding more willing customers and partners Asia. Read more »
In the telecom and Internet worlds, it’s standard to re-route data over different lines when one path is overloaded. But not so much, when it comes to the power grid. However, a newly-emerged startup called Varentec, backed by Khosla Ventures, is looking to change all that. Read more »
One of the difficulties with investing in cleantech startups is that investors sometimes need to take very long term views of the companies they back, despite that companies can be risky. Next-gen biofuel company KiOR is a prime example of this long term, high risk phenomenon. Read more »
Despite many challenges — from disappointing EV sales to the headaches in subsidizing solar — the cleantech sector survived 2011. Where is it headed next? It is clear that early-stage companies and ideas hold the keys to future growth, much like the first wave of Internet ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Nuclear startup TerraPower, which is backed by Bill Gates, now has a massive Indian conglomerate on its side: Reliance Industries. According to Business Week, Reliance Industries, which owns oil, telecom and retail businesses, has invested a minority stake in TerraPower through one of its energy units. Read more »
Jawbone, a San Francisco-based company that makes mobile lifestyle accessories such as Jambox and Up, a personal health device has raised another $40 million in new funds from Deutsche Telekom, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, private investor Yuri Milner and J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Read more »
A startup developing technology that can clean water with low amounts of energy is quietly raising funds from some of SiliconValley’s most-well-known venture firms. According to a filing, NanoH20 is raising $30.6 million, and it has closed on about half of that, or $14.9 million. Read more »
Carbon recycling startup Calera has been awfully quiet this year, but according to a filing it has raised another $10 million. Read more »
If there is one thing to know about the pace of progress for battery innovation, it’s this: There is no Moore’s law for batteries. The rapid progress that has been made over the past decade in silicon and computing makes the pace of innovation in batteries, ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
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 »
Just a few days after one social TV startup hit the dead pool, another is raising new funding. Miso announced Thursday that it’s raised a $4 million financing round led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from existing investors Google Ventures and Hearst Interactive Media. Read more »
Soraa, a three-year-old startup that uses the semiconductor gallium nitride for lighting and laser applications, has raised a round of $88.6 million, according to a filing. Read more »
Seeo raised $15 million earlier this year, and we know how it’s spending some of that money. The startup has moved into a new home and installed a pilot production line that produces 4 megawatt hours of cells per year. Read more »
A quiet early stage startup called Silicium Energy recently got the equivalent of golden ticket: a seed investment from greentech investor Vinod Khosla. According to a filing, the company raised just $1.65 million, with backing from Khosla. Read more »
Facebook plans to build a solar system on the rooftop of its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., from startup Cogenra Solar that will generate both electricity and heat. Read more »
Brent Constantz, the founder and former CEO of Calera — a startup that turns carbon dioxide into cement — is having a second act in clean water, and is incubating water desalination technologies and working on a proposal for a deep water desalination project in Monterey, Calif. Read more »
It’s official. Khosla Ventures, the firm of influential venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, has raised its $1.05 billion fourth fund and will still continue to invest as much money as it previously has done on cleantech startups. Read more »
Startup WeatherBill has built a business around offering farmers financial protection against weather, but the underlying goal of the company has always been to help companies adapt to a changing climate, the company’s CEO and Co-Founder David Friedberg told me. Read more »
QuantumScape is the next battery startup you should know. The early stage company is commercializing technology from Stanford University, and was founded, and is being led by, Infinera co-founder and CEO Jagdeep Singh. Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins have invested in the startup. Read more »
The realization that many greentech startups need more capital and time than expected to commercialize their technologies has sacked some venture capitalists’ enthusiasm for cleantech. Vinod Khosla has a message for them: chin up! There’s good money to be made and I’m doing just fine. Read more »
Mascoma is the latest biofuel company that plans to go public. Here’s a few red flags, and some other numbers, I found in the filing: Read more »
Yet another Khosla Ventures-backed biofuel company has filed to go public. On Friday cellulosic ethanol company Mascoma filed an S-1, indicating it plans to raise a maximum of $100 million in an IPO. Read more »
It’s refreshing to see a little innovation going into the wind industry. On Tuesday, Danotek, a startup that builds a technology called permanent magnetic generators for wind turbines, announced that it has raised $15 million from high-profile investors GE, Khosla Ventures, CMEA Capital, and Statoil Technology. Read more »
Infinia, a solar startup which is using Stirling engines to produce solar power, is looking to raise $25 million in funding, and has closed $6 million of that round according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Read more »
There will be no loan guarantee for recently public biofuel company KiOR, at least this year. According to correspondence with the SEC, KiOR put its application for 2011 on hold in May, with plans to roll it over to 2012 — assuming the program gets funded for 2012. Read more »
One thing is clear: Investors love Square, the payments company co-founded by Jack Dorsey, the co-creator of Twitter. The veteran venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is leading the $100 million investment in the company that is said to be valued at $1 billion. Read more »
RockMelt has raised $30 million in a series B funding round led by Accel Partners, Khosla Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. Although Rockmelt has already seen interest from potential acquirers, the social browser company has opted to “double down” on the opportunity to grow independently. Read more »
Biofuel firm KiOR, which debuted on the Nasdaq this morning priced at $15 per share, also closed the day at $15 per share — in other words, as flat as a Britney Spear’s high note. Read more »
Biofuel startup KiOR has priced its IPO at $15 per share, below its estimated price per share of between $19 to $21. Read more »
Biofuel startup KiOr’s could raise as much as $241.50 million in an IPO on the Nasdaq, at a maximum offering price per share of $21. KiOr estimates that it will price its shares between $19 to $21 per share, and could price shares this week. Read more »
Low-power server maker SeaMicro has raised another $20 million in funding, according to a filing. SeaMicro’s server technology consumes a quarter of the power of a regular server but packs more than 2,000 CPU cores. Read more »
Recently-public biofuel and chemical maker Gevo is holding the official ground breaking ceremony for its first commercial-scale project, a retrofit of an old ethanol plant in Luverne, Minn. on Tuesday. Read more »
Some of the best ideas on our network sometimes come from reader comments. In response to our piece last week on Why the LinkedIn IPO is Bad For Cleantech, commenter Bill Hewitt, I think hit a nerve with his suggestion: “Clean tech has gone beyond VC.” Read more »
Amyris has opened its first industrial scale facility to turn sugarcane syrup into Biofene, a form of the industrial chemical farnesene, which is a fragrant hydrocarbon that’s used to make cosmetics and lubricants. It’s a big step, though not quite yet to commercial-scale biofuel production. Read more »
Weather data tools and technologies for adapting to climate change are the next hot place for innovation. Weather insurance startup WeatherBill announced it has raised a second funding round of $42 million from Google Ventures and Khosla Ventures, and including existing investors. Read more »
Gevo is officially a public company. The biofuel maker priced its shares at $15 — at the high end of its range — raising $95.7 million after offering expenses, and in morning trading Gevo shares are rising. Read more »
Khosla-backed bio-crude startup KiOR is seeking a $1 billion loan guarantee from the DOE. The company announced a term sheet Thursday, which may or may not lead to an award, but if secured, will be crucial to the company’s plans to scale up production. Read more »
Storify, a San Francisco-based startup that launched a social-media aggregation service for journalists last fall, has closed a $2-million Series A round of funding from Khosla Ventures. Founder and former Associated Press foreign correspondent Burt Herman says he wants to reinvent the way storytelling happens online. Read more »
