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Powerit, LiveFuels, Southwest Windpower, INI Power, and NanoH2O

Rob Day: May 31, 2007, 1:23 PM
Lots of deal announcements over the past couple of days.

To begin with [self-promotion alert], Powerit Holdings, which provides automated solutions for energy demand management, announced a $7.1mm Series A led by @Ventures, and including participation by Expansion Capital Partners, as well as existing investors Stellar Holdings and company management. Powerit's technology is uniquely able to help large industrial and commercial energy users to achieve significant savings on their electricity bill without any negative impacts on productivity or comfort, and with very strong payback periods. Since industrial buildings consume 27% of all electricity produced in the U.S., it's a big...
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"Cleantech venture bubble" watch, pt 3: Biofuels

Rob Day: May 30, 2007, 6:00 AM
As we discussed before, it's tough to declare a "bubble" across all cleantech sectors, especially when looking only at venture investments (versus the public markets). There remains the possibility of small bubbles within certain sub-sectors, however. One such sub-sector that is frequently called out as potentially seeing overinvestment is biofuels. Some investors, such as CMEA's Maurice Gunderson, have gone on record as saying so. And in the public market, previous high-flying ethanol stocks have been experiencing a bumpy ride lately. In the same article linked in the last sentence, Lux's Michael Holman declares that: "The herd mentality has begun to take over in the venture...
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Happy Memorial Day

Rob Day: May 28, 2007, 6:31 PM
GE has announced that they plan on doubling their cleantech venture capital investments from $25mm this year to $50mm in 2008. It's yet another sign of the importance of cleantech for such large capital goods providers, who are also likely to be major acquirers of clean technologies as the space continues to mature -- and thus providing exits for many cleantech venture investments. It's also interesting to note that GE had previously moved away from direct venture investments in the past, and this announcement is further indication that the company is getting more comfortable getting back into a corporate VC business model...

Deals from the past week:
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"Cleantech venture bubble" watch, part 2 — Five Questions: Matthew Nordan

Rob Day: May 24, 2007, 10:36 AM
Last week we started a series of posts on the subject of investment bubbles in the cleantech sector -- and in the process, we used a recent research report by Lux Research as a centerpiece of the discussion. (We also, admittedly, took a little bit of a swipe at the PR announcing the report's release... All in the spirit of constructive informal dialogue, of course.) This past friday, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Matthew Nordan, President of Lux Research, to discuss all matters cleantech. We discussed the various historical analogies to the emergence of the cleantech sector (IT, biotech, materials science), dealflow aggregation methodologies, and -- of course -- the...
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Demand response gets another comp

Rob Day: May 21, 2007, 4:01 PM
It would appear that the cat's out of the bag regarding energy efficiency/ smart grid technology, and particularly its subsector demand response. First, the successful IPO by Comverge (COMV), and now DR rival EnerNOC (ENOC) has made a similarly big splash in the public markets.

Both companies are venture-backed efforts in the DR space, so it's a good sign to venture investors that the public market exit option should be open to "boring" energy efficiency technologies going forward. It probably reflects a recognition of the strong economics presented by energy efficiency -- the best way to make a kilowatt-hour is not to use one in the first place (admittedly, we've been beating this...
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Arch Rock and Ice Energy

Rob Day: May 17, 2007, 5:45 PM
  • Ice Energy, which uses ice-based air conditioners to shift energy usage from peak periods to non-peak periods (freeze the ice at night, use it to cool a building during the day) raised a $25mm round of financing. The round had been in the works for a while, and ended up being led by Goldman Sachs, with participation by Good Energies and existing investors Second Avenue Partners and Sail Venture Partners.
    ...
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REBN comes to Boston

Rob Day: May 17, 2007, 5:33 AM
Long-time readers of this site will know about the Renewable Energy Business Network (REBN), which has been bringing clean energy business professionals, investors and researchers together for informal networking sessions in the bay area...

Now REBN is coming to Boston! REBN-East will hold their very first renewables happy hour on Thursday, May 31st at Flat Top Johnny's in Kendall Square. Advanced Technology Ventures is graciously sponsoring the event, which will start at 6:30pm.

Cleantech Investing readers in the Boston area are all encouraged to attend -- looking forward to seeing everyone!

Latest Update: 2 days ago 8:15 AM

About Cleantech Investing:

Rob Day is a Partner with Black Coral Capital, based in Boston.  He has been a cleantech private equity investor since 2004, and acts or has served as a Director, Observer and advisory board member to multiple companies in the energy tech and related sectors.  Rob was a co-founder of the Renewable Energy Business Network (www.rebn.org), a non-profit organization which was acquired in 2009 by the Clean Economy Network.  The views expressed on this blog are those of Rob, not necessarily the views of any of his colleagues and affiliated organizations. Contact Rob at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

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