Why is cleantech venture capital suddenly the hottest thing since Disco? Because the exits are starting to happen. While M&A remains the dominant exit path for VC exits in this and other sectors, the Cleantech Group's latest figures, there were 17 cleantech IPOs in the second quarter, totaling $1.7 billion in proceeds. That's nearly double the number of IPOs in the first quarter... The Cleantech Group's numbers also showed that North American cleantech venture investments totaled $843mm in the quarter -- about the same as in Q2 2006. The amazing growth in cleantech VC investments appears to have slowed recently. Is it a pause before a second wave? Or is the recent hype covering up an underlying flatline in activity? Or is it all just a collection of lumpy figures that don't really tell a coherent story because a couple of deals here and there dominate the totals? Time will tell. Although August was brutally busy for many cleantech VCs, and September's starting out even busier (especially for yours truly, so apologies for the sporadic postings), so anecdotally at least, things are heating up once again... Red Herring also had a nice piece looking at the numbers and discussing how VCs are starting to look more into some of the less-fished corners of the cleantech pond. Deals and noteworthy items from the past few days:
  • Virent Energy Systems, which is developing a catalytic process for the production of gasoline from sugars, announced a $21mm Series B, co-led by Stark Investments (a Wisconsin hedge fund) and Venture Investors of Madison, WI. Existing investor Cargill Ventures also participated. The fact that the co-leads of this round were local investors is an interesting development.
  • SynapSense, which offers technology for monitoring and optimization of energy use in data centers, announced a $10mm Series B, led by Emerald Technology Ventures. Existing investors American River Ventures, Nth Power and DFJ Frontier also participated in the round.
  • Solar thermal-based electricity generation startup Ausra announced a "more than" $40mm round of financing. Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins provided the financing, and Vinod Khosla and Ray Lane have taken director seats.
  • UK-based Lysanda has raised GBP 1mm to develop what they're calling "Eco-Log", which you may be relieved to learn is an on-board vehicle emissions monitoring technology. Half of the capital was a venture capital investment by the Sustainable Technology Fund, managed by E-Synergy Ltd. GBP 300k was angel financing.
  • Israel-based Galten, a Jatropha biodiesel startup, has raised $10mm. UK-based Capital Partners led the round.
Other news and notes: Tech Confidential had a couple of very good posts (here and here) covering the AlwaysOn GoingGreen conference, which featured a good group of cleantech VC presenters -- reinforcing the need for sectoral expertise when making early-stage bets in the space... Here's a great update on all the cleantechy goodness going on down in Austin... "No clue" is the clear winner in the "who will win the race for commercialization of algal biodiesel" contest, according to this fun poll from Inside Greentech... Finally, although this came out last month, it's worth reading today.

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