Venture capital-backed lithium ion battery startup Amprius is finally moving into commercial production, with an announcement that it has OEM partners in place, and will start making its second-gen batteries later this year. Read more »
Can a Valley-backed startup help usher in a transition to plant-based proteins dominating the meat counter? Read more »
An Atlanta-based startup called Ionic Security has raised a $9.4 million Series A-1 round to develop its technology that aims to let employees access data on whatever devices and networks they want without fear of having their data stolen along the way. Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers […] Read more »
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 »
The lawsuits are piling up for electric car startup Fisker Automotive — here’s the third this month, this time from design and communication firm Ignited over an alleged unpaid bill of $535K. Read more »
Fisker’s landlord has filed a suit that says the electric car company has to pay its April rent or evacuate its headquarters. The company seems to be getting ever closer to bankruptcy. Read more »
The woman who raised questions about gender and discrimination in Silicon Valley with her lawsuit against VC firm Kleiner Perkins is now moving on to work at Reddit. Read more »
Solar financier Clean Power Finance has raised a large round of $37 million from Valley investors Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures and Claremont Creek. Solar financing and installations are one of the bright spots in the solar sector. Read more »
According to sources electric car startup Fisker Automotive is laying off most of its staff and is announcing that to employees today. Read more »
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 »
A startup called Choose Energy is offering consumers a comparison shopping site for electricity in deregulated markets, and is building tools to help retail energy providers acquire customers. The company raised a series A round from Kleiner and Stephens Capital. Read more »
For companies in Silicon Valley who want to prioritize design, the real question is how to do it while also shipping engineering products to market. At Pinterest, the designers and engineers are vocal that you can, in fact, do both. Read more »
One of the more subtle problems with the first wave of cleantech investing I think has to do with passion, identity and save-the-world over exuberance. It’s hard to call that a fault, but when it comes to making money in the VC model, it’s a problem. Read more »
Solar startup Alta Devices says its achieved a new efficiency for its solar cells developed for mobile gadget makers. In a difficult year solar companies are heads down focused on boosting the efficiency of solar cells. 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 »
A startup backed by Google, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and Paul Allen’s investment firm, called AltaRock Energy has delivered an important breakthrough for the next-generation of geothermal technology at a site in Bend, Oregon. Read more »
Alta Devices has spent the past year courting the military with its highly efficient solar cells, which could go into mobile chargers to help lighten a soldier’s pack. Read more »
Silver Lake’s energy fund and venture firm Kleiner Perkins are backing a German recycled plastics processor called Friedola Tech. The company will use the funds partly to open up a new factory in South Carolina. Read more »
Did investor love for designers just jump the shark? Nah, but it’s a long-brewing trend that continues to get even bigger. Read more »
Advanced Equities, a controversial investment group in Chicago, is closing up its broker-dealer operations, reports Fortune. The firm had raised hundreds of millions of dollars for cleantech startups in recent years, but recently settled charges with the SEC, hurting its reputation and costing it $1 million. Read more »
Dollar Shave Club, the seemingly too-good-to-be-true promise of razors every month for only $1, has raised almost $10 million in a Series A funding round for international expansion (with Canada to start), and growth into other men’s product verticals, although they wouldn’t say which ones. Read more »
A startup that makes more efficient power conversion devices has raised money from, and partnered with, a group of Japanese electronics giants. Transphorm is a venture-backed startup and its move is a symbol of the growing importance of corporate partners as well as overseas investors in cleantech. Read more »
Sometimes the lack of $10k means the difference between life and death for a startup. Upstart, says founder Dave Girouard (formerly president of Google Enterprise) will match college grads with patrons who will back their proposed startups money and advice. Read more »
Investment group Advanced Equities has agreed to pay $1 million to settle charges that it misled investors while raising funds for an alternative energy company in Silicon Valley back in 2009 and 2010. That company in question is reportedly fuel cell maker Bloom Energy. Read more »
Finding new and profitable ways to recycle the trash it collects has guided the investment strategy of Waste Management, which recently put money into a startup that can turn some of the garbage into sugars for making plastic and other products. Read more »
Electric car maker Fisker Automotive is bringing on a new CEO, Tony Posawatz, who will replace former CEO Tom LaSorda. LaSorda came on to replace founder Henrik Fisker as CEO about 6 months ago. Posawatz was previously at GM where he worked on the Volt. Read more »
Buying and selling renewable energy credits has helped to build New Jersey into a major solar state. That has enticed a San Francisco startup to start offering a credit trading service, which it launched on Tuesday, to help installers finance residential projects. Read more »
BMW’s venture fund, BMW i Ventures, has invested in electric car charging company Coulomb Technologies, according to a release. BMW launched its $100 million fund — its first to date — last year to focus on “mobility,” including mobile apps, in car services and auto navigation. Read more »
Investments by venture capitalists into smart grid companies — or firms that are adding digital intelligence to the power grid — has remained “extremely weak” over at least the last three quarters, according to research firm the Mercom Capital Group. Read more »
A solar startup with a new type of technology, and funding from Kleiner Perkins and the Department of Energy, has closed its factory in Las Vegas after 14 months, according to the Las Vegas Review Journal. Read more »
Found a photo of a beautiful birthday cake or home decorating project you want to replicate, but don’t have the DIY skills to make it yourself? Zaarly’s new API lets users post inspirational photos to the site where chefs and handymen can turn photos into reality. Read more »
Not a bigger shocker from the Cleantech Group this morning: the amount of venture capital funding that went into cleantech startups worldwide in the second quarter of 2012 dropped by 25 percent, in terms of total dollars spent, from the prior year second quarter. Read more »
Electric car company Fisker Automotive has a lot of investors — its broker Advanced Equities helped it raise funds from dozens of high-net worth individuals, in addition to its funding from venture capitalists. Turns out one of those investors is actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Read more »
Noom, a maker of Android-based fitness and health apps, has found success with its flagship app Noom Weight Loss Coach because it doesn’t require users to enter in a lot of data. The app tries to deliver timely coaching lessons that can still motivate users. Read more »
eBay just one-upped Apple’s data center fuel cell farm. On Thursday the commerce giant announced that it is building additional capacity at its data center in Utah and it plans to power that new capacity with 30 fuel cells from Bloom Energy. Read more »
Education startup Codecademy — which promises to help anyone learn to program with its game-like online courses — is stepping up to the international market with a $10 million round of funding from new backers including Index Ventures and Kleiner Perkins. Read more »
Advanced Equities, an investment and brokerage firm that has helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for cleantech firms in recent years, could see its CEO and co-founder resign as early as this week, according to a report in DowJones VentureWire. Read more »
Fuel cell maker Bloom Energy is raising another $150 million at a pre-money valuation of $2.7 billion, according to DowJones VentureWire. If closed, Bloom Energy will have raised $800 million over its 11-year lifetime. Read more »
Whatever you think of Ellen Pao and her sexual harassment lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins, there are a couple of things we know for sure. She has sparked a watershed moment for women’s rights in the 21st century. And she is sacrificing her entire career for it. Read more »
