“Capital efficiency” now the “it” thing

Based upon the spate of cleantech VC interviews I’ve seen lately and what my fellow investors are saying, it’s clear that “capital efficiency” is the new watchword as we head into 2009.

So expect to see some $25mm Series B rounds into cleantech-related software plays.

On a related note, here’s my latest column from the Mass High Tech journal.

Here’s the final catch-up on 2008 deals and news:

• Xunlight has received $7mm in loans from the State of Ohio.

• Confirmation of the SolarEdge $23mm Series B.

• Norway’s Metallkraft, which is recycling the slurry from silicon wafer production, has raised a EUR 22.8mm round of financing, with Capricorn Cleantech Fund providing EUR 3.5mm.

• Home energy monitoring company Positive Energy has raised a $14mm second round of financing, with funds provided by NEA.

• PE Week Wire confirmed Solyndra’s long-rumored Series E was closed at $219.2mm, including participation by Argonaut Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, CMEA Ventures and Redpoint Ventures.

• LED fixture developer Wireless Environment has raised $400k from JumpStart.

• Biodiesel Advanced Research and Development (BARD) has raised $40mm so far and expects to raise about as much in 2009 in order to build a Philly-area algal biodiesel plant, according to Clean Technology Insight.

Cleantech investors in the news:

• Hawaiian Electric Company and Khosla Ventures are teaming up to try out new techs. I think this is a brilliant idea.  More utilities should form some kind of non-binding tech trial and/or LP relationship with venture firms… the utilities need the intel and the VC firms need the sandbox for their startups.

• A good interview with Peter Nieh of Lightspeed.

• VantagePoint has raised a $435mm second cleantech fund.

• Wise words from Sunil Paul, well worth reading.

• Riyada Ventures announces a new cleantech investing initiative.

• Many environmental foundations are private equity limited partners.  It may surprise some readers to learn that these foundation endowments are often not managed with an emphasis on supporting the environmental missions of the foundations, and in fact such LPs have been relatively slow to invest in cleantech private equity.  Here’s an interesting attempt to bridge that gap.

• Here’s a good profile of Nancy Floyd of Nth Power.

• A good interview with Steve Jurvetson of DFJ.

Other news and notes:  Earth2Tech’s 10 biggest cleantech victories of 2008 don’t include any real wins for VCs—unless you consider spending a ton of money as a “victory” (writing checks is the easy part, after all)...  Eric Wesoff’s list of the top ten deals in 2008 (note: opens pdf) had to be expanded into a top 21 list so it wouldn’t be quite so dominated by solar deals (except it still is)...  For those interested in ultracaps, here’s EEStor’s latest patent—what struck me was the Summary of the Invention, which comes as close to “patent application as marketing doc” as I’ve yet seen…  Here’s a critical take on the claims that First Solar has achieved “grid parity”...  A cool picture of General Fusion’s device…  An interesting cleantech survey by Cooley Godward…  Tesla is far from the only company getting affected thusly by the downturn, they’re just one that gets written about a lot…  VC investments in Indian cleantech startups may get tax breaks...  Finally, I don’t think I’ve linked to CleanTechnica.com before, so here you go!

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