FloDesign, BrightSource, and GreenFuel

• Winning both the Ignite Clean Energy and the Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize recently, wind turbine innovator FloDesign is on a roll, and apparently they’re closing in on a new round of financing, with Kleiner putting in a term sheet.

• Solar continues to be on a roll, with BrightSource Energy announcing a new $115mm round of financing.  Google.org, BP Alternative Energy, Statoil Hydro Venture, and Black River all signed on as new investors, while existing investors VantagePoint, DBL Investors, DFJ, and Chevron Technology Ventures all also participated.  [5/22 edit: moved VantagePoint in the list to acknowledge that they were actually the first institutional investors in the company]

• And GreenFuel rolled some new financing into an extension on their Series B (from two years ago, which was an extension on the original Series B from a year before that).  Reportedly a $13.9mm insider round.

• Cleantech investors in the news:  Congrats to Joel Serface on his new role as an EIR at NREL, representing Kleiner as part of the DOE’s new program…  Here’s an article with some good thoughts from some of Canada’s leading cleantech investors…  And here’s a Q&A on cleantech with Steve Jurvetson.

Other news and notes:  An update on ARPA-E...  DOE funding opportunities in solid state lighting...  Building the western Pennsylvania cleantech cluster...  Finally, no joke, here’s the “Photovoltaic-Powered Bra.”