Toronto and Boston conferences

Enjoyed attending two very strong cleantech conferences over the past few days.

The semi-annual Cleantech Venture Forum was, as always, well-attended and a great opportunity to network with peers in the industry.  You can see some summaries of the proceedings here, here and here.  Prism Solar won the prize for most promising company among the presenters—later, the company shared with VentureWire that they’ve raised $6.5mm of their ongoing Series A round (in February we mentioned they’d raised a bit over $2mm to date), with I2BF Venture Capital providing some of the capital.

One particularly intriguing session at the Forum was a presentation by member of the “Developer and Platform Evangelism Group” from Microsoft—for anyone interested in smart building technologies and environmental performance tracking, take careful note that MSFT is now moving into the sector…

We also learned that cleantech venture capital took another big jump up in the third quarter in North America, with $1.26B in investments.  That was a 36% increase over the third quarter of 2006, and a 50% jump up from Q2 2007.  Once again solar and biofuels led the way, apparently.  We’ll have to revisit these numbers once the details are known—as always, it’s interesting to see how much of the increase is concentrated in a small number of big “venture” deals.

Then I had the pleasure of taking part in a venture capital panel at the 3rd Annual Conference on Clean Energy here in Boston.  It was a very good showing, demonstrating all the commitment here by the regional government, investment and non-profit communities, toward the development of a strong cleantech cluster.  What was quite interesting was the hosting of a parallel Energy Workforce Summit at the same event, illustrating nicely the jobs growth potential that is at the heart of cleantech cluster-building efforts.

Gov. Deval Patrick gave a very well-crafted speech on the topic at hand, which was all the more notable for the fact that the Red Sox victory parade was going by right outside the convention center.  It worked out very well for everyone who sprinted out the door after the Governor’s speech in time to see the “duck boats” drive by with the team members waving and the crowds roaring… Worked out very well for everyone except Peter Girguis of Living Power Systems, who was stuck not only presenting directly after the Governor, but also right at the height of the parade goings-on.  So for those of you (like me) who skipped out on Peter’s presentation to gawk at Big Papi, do yourself a favor and check out LPS at www.living-power.com, they have a very smart technology with a good potential solution to a lot of off-grid power challenges in both developed and developing economies.

Deals from the past week:

• Solar concentrator startup GreenVolts announced a $10mm Series A, led by Greenlight Energy Resources, and including participation by Avista Corporation and other undisclosed investors.

• Lots of talk about Shai Agassi’s Project Better Place startup, which has apparently raised a whopping $200mm in financing from a group of investors including Israel Corp., to develop infrastructure for re-charging and support for electric cars.  This will be a fascinating one to watch…

• Optimal Technologies International, which is developing supply-side and demand-side systems to optimize (note: not “maximize”, which would be entirely different…) the consumption of electricity, raised a tranched $25mm financing from Goldman Sachs ($13mm in the first tranche).

• ImageTree, which has developed land-imagery offerings for monitoring forests (with a variety of potential cleantech-related benefits) has raised a $4.5mm Series B led by Battelle Ventures.  PA Early Stage Partners, the West Virginia Jobs Investment Trust Board, the Conservation Fund and Innovation Valley Partners all also participated in the round.

• Last but not least, congrats to the Cleantech Group on their recent investment by Credit Suisse.

• VentureWire is also reporting that SensorTran (full disclosure: note that in the past I briefly served as an observer on their board), which has developed fiber optic technology for temperature, pressure and other sensing, is looking to raise a Series B by year-end.  Kent Kalar, the CEO, told VWire that they have received a term sheet, and that they expect this to be their final round of venture financing.

Cleantech investors in the news:

• Israeli cleantech venture group Terra Venture Partners has raised $15mm of their inaugural fund, and has already made two investments…  Meanwhile, also in Israel,  Greylock and Israel Cleantech Ventures have formed a joint venture, CleanStart, to provide seed capital and mentoring for startups in the region.

• General Catalyst has closed their fifth fund at $714mm—the firm invests across a broad range of sectors, but here in Boston, Hemant Taneja has been a driving force behind a lot of the recent cleantech cluster-building efforts in the region.

• Kyoto Planet Asset Management has launched the Kyoto Planet Fund, which will invest in both public and private cleantech businesses.

Other news and notes:  Here’s a terrific recap of the recent Solar Decathlon...  Speaking of solar, Duke Energy wants to buy a solar developer (and there are lots to choose from)...  Econometric dorks like myself might appreciate this interesting event study...  The California Clean Tech Open winners have been announced, congrats to all…  Yikes... And finally, enjoy.