VC in Greentech This Week: Biofuels, Organic Solar and Smart Grid

$20 million pours into greentech startups this week, and VantagePoint raises a $100 million China greentech fund.

Eight19 Limited raised $7 million from the Carbon Trust and Rhodia, a specialty chemicals company.  The firm is a solar energy startup spun-out from the Carbon Trust’s Cambridge University-TTP Advanced PV Research Accelerator looking to develop high-performance, low-cost plastic organic solar cells.  The "Eight19" refers either to the time it takes sunlight to reach the earth or the price per watt.

Powerhouse Dynamics raised $400,000 this summer for its energy-monitoring software which tracks energy usage at the circuit level. Powerhouse is marketing its eMonitor system to energy auditors, security companies, PV installers and homebuilders. The firm raised $1 million in a round led by CommonAngels in February.

SG Biofuels, a bioenergy crop company developing and producing Jatropha seeds raised a $9.4 million Round A from Flint Hills Resources, Life Technologies Corporation, and existing investors to advance Jatropha as a high-yield, low cost feedstock for diesel, jet fuel and petrochemicals.



Grid2Home, a smart energy communications startup that builds software for home area networks (HANs), won an undisclosed amount of seed funding led by Granite Ventures.  The firm’s software enables two-way data communications from a meter to household appliances and EVs. 



Greentech powerhouse venture firm VantagePoint Venture Partners launched a $100M greentech fund in China.

 

Government funding

ARPA-E, within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), awarded Makani Power $3 million to continue development of an airborne wind turbine using tethered, high-performance wings outfitted with turbines. 



And...

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