A new record?

What’s the largest single LP commitment to any single private equity fund in history?

I have no data on the subject, but it would seem to me that if CalPERS does indeed make a $640mm commitment to Vinod’s fund, that might set the new record.  Curious.

And as another previously early-stage focused investor raises another huge fund, it really shows how these funds are looking to shift their strategies a bit.

Especially coming after RockPort’s announcement this week, it’s even clearer that many cleantech venture firms are going to be putting more emphasis on putting more money into their deals.  And thus, that there has to be some kind of continued shift into later-stage investments in terms of portfolio mix.

In other news, it was a quiet week in announced deals, but that should change soon—we know of several deals that are being done right now that haven’t quite made the “announcement stage” yet, so it’s not like the sectoral activity is slowing down at all…

That having been said, here are this week’s deals:

• Power controller startup Evince Technologies has raised a GBP500k seed round of financing from Low Carbon Seed Fund, Imperial Innovations, and NorthStar Equity Investors.

• Biodiesel producer Innovation Fuels has taken in a $10.5mm round of equity financing (plus $5mm in debt) from Credit Suisse, RNK Capital and Lyrical Partners.  Clean Tech Investor reported that the company is intending to act as the core of a biodiesel roll-up effort.

• Wood pellet fuel producer American Biomass has taken in a $4mm Series A led by .406 Ventures.

• Solar BOS (hardware and software, both) provider Tigo Energy has raised a $6mm round of financing co-led by Matrix Partners and OVP Venture Partners.

• FTL Solar has completed the “first phase” of a planned $50mm round of financing, with Terra Firma Capital Group, the Josh Mailman Foundation, and individual investors providing the capital.

• VentureWire reported that natural insecticide developer EcoSmart has raised an additional $5mm as an extension on their $14mm (total) 2006-vintage Series C .  Existing investors Cordova Ventures, Delta Capital Management, Early Stage Partners, Element Partners and RockPort Capital Partners provided the capital.

• Cleantech investors in the news:  Bucking the “go big and go late” trend among cleantech investors, Ventures West is targeting $200mm for their ninth fund, according to VentureWire.  The Canadian firm invests across a number of sectors including cleantech.  That would be down from their last fund, which was around $250mm.

Other news and notes:  $45 Trillion makes $10 Billion seem like a pittance, all of which puts $640mm into perspective…  A survey of VCs says that the U.S. is not necessarily the best place for cleantech these days… For  we econ-policy-carbon pricing wonks, this survey is pretty interesting—seems like $4.00 per gallon of gas is a bit of an inflection point in terms of driving behavior…  Finally, and now for your voyeuristic pleasure, here’s Matt Damon in a Tesla.