Go big or go home, pt 2

Today’s chatter: After our post earlier this month regarding the embiggening of cleantech venture capital firms, Jonathan Shieber at VentureWire today wrote about the ongoing fundraising efforts among cleantech specialist firms.  He specifically mentioned expectations that RockPort will soon close a fund at more than $450mm; NGEN Partners seeking to raise a new fund at $500mm; Element Partners seeking $400mm for their second fund; and the Westley Group seeking $100mm for their first cleantech fund.  With the exception of the last one, naturally, in all three other cases these would represent significantly larger funds than their previous efforts.

Some deals to mention over the last couple of days:

• Efficient spark plug manufacturer Enerpulse expanded their Series B by $5mm, with the new amount coming from Robeco Clean Tech Private Equity II and SAIL Venture Partners.  SAIL and Altira were previous participants in the Series B from last year.

• Solar-powered outdoor lighting developer SolarOne announced a second round financing round of undisclosed amount.  FreshTracks Capital and TSG Equity Partners were backers in the round.

• Low Carbon Accelerator has put an additional GBP 750k in loans and convertible loans into Eco-Solids, a developer of technologies for sewage treatment.

• Cleantech investors in the news:  CalPERS CIO Russell Read has left, to pursue “his long-standing interest” in cleantech investing.

Other news and notes:  Interesting article on Coskata’s technology...  Sorry Vinod, here’s the first cleantech Monopoly—at least it wasn’t “Cleantech VC Monopoly”, with game pieces like a pair of khaki slacks, a blue sports coat, and a deep rolodex…  Finally, a Did You Know:  In 2006, the total installed base peak average power output of photovoltaics worldwide was around 1.21 gigawatts.