ISE, Concentrix, EnvironmentIQ, Ometric

• ISE, a manufacturer of hybrid drivetrains for buses and heavy trucks, announced a $25M Series B.  NGP Energy Technology Partners, Rockport, and Third Avenue Management participated in the round.  The round brings total financing to $31.7M to date.

• Concentrix Solar GmbH, which manufactures solar concentrator PV systems, received an undisclosed amount of funding (note: link opens a pdf) from Good Energies, a German solar- and wind-focused VC which has invested in several solar companies to date.

• EnvironmentIQ, f/k/a Camaxys, took in $15M in funding from Fidelity Ventures and Cazenove Private Equity.  The company’s enterprise software assists corporate Environment Health and Safety (“EH&S”) efforts.  Apparently this funding represents a bit of a restart for the company, which has gone through a wide variety of financings in the past.

• Ometric, an optical spectroscopy startup that is looking forward to launching its first products soon, took in an undisclosed amount of financing from Sequoia Capital and The Trelys Funds.  We’ve talked about the cleantech applications of optical sensors before.  Ometric appears to be initially targeting pharmaceutical quality assurance applications, but one of the appealing features of emerging optical sensor technologies in general is that they tend to lend themselves to a broad range of applications, including environmental monitoring.  For an example, take Expansion Capital portfolio company Tiger Optics (self-promotion alert), which has developed a different proprietary spectroscopy solution aimed initially at the semiconductor/ high purity gases markets, but which is developing (and in several cases, successfully selling) applications for automotive emissions testing, atmospheric pollutant monitoring, pharma, medical diagnostics, continuous process manufacturing, etc.  When these optical sensing technologies represent true proprietary breakthroughs, they can serve as “platform technologies”, enjoying both TCO and performance advantages, with strong growth potential across a broad range of cleantech applications.