Cleantech VC is receding because of poor short-term performance – no surprise in a post-bubble field with outsized time and money requirements. The category is about to go on a walk in the woods, where innovators will blaze a new trail. Read more »
Learning thermostat maker Nest has closed on $80 million to keep growing, and we’ve heard it’s shipping 40K to 50K thermostats per month. The round was raised at an $800 million valuation and the company could reach a million per year shipment rate by the Summer. 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 »
Algae biofuel is getting a massive infusion of money. Startup Sapphire Energy, which uses synthetic biology to make a green crude out of algae, announced on Monday that it’s raising $144 million in a Series C round from investors including agriculture company Monsanto. Read more »
Plenty of late-stage financing will be available for cleantech start-ups over the next few years, but seed/Series A money is another matter. Read more »
Researchers are already predicting how the nuclear disaster in Japan will affect the nuclear industry. According to Mark Cooper, a senior fellow at Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and Environment, construction costs of nuclear reactors are likely to soar for awhile. Read more »
Next-generation nuclear technology could come to a screeching halt in the short term due to the backlash against nuclear in the wake of the Japanese nuclear incident, predicts Ray Rothrock, a partner at venture firm Venrock and a former nuclear engineer. Read more »
