Huge Week in Greentech VC

This has been a huge week for VC funding in Greentech. SpectraWatt, HaloSource, Morgan Solar join a long list of VC recipients…

Eric Wesoff, Michael Kanellos January 07, 2010

Eric Wesoff

Editor-at-Large
Greentech Media

Eric Wesoff is Editor-at-Large at Greentech Media. Prior to joining GTM, Eric Wesoff founded Sage Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields.

His expertise covers solar power, fuel cells, biofuels and advanced batteries. His strengths are in market research and analysis, business development and due diligence for investors. He frequently consults for energy startups and Silicon Valley's premier venture capitalists.

We covered 2009 VC investment in Greentech in some detail here. But investments in the New Year have come in with a bang - here's a quick rundown of the new money in Greentech.

Seattle-based Halosource raised $10 million from Prime Partners Merchant Capital of Singapore to develop and commercialize its water purification business. The company has raised a total of about $30 million since 2007.

SpectraWatt, a secretive solar firm spun out of Intel has received another $12 million in funding according to a regulatory filing. in 2008, Intel Capital led a $50 million investment in the firm and was joined by Cogentrix Energy, PCG, and Solon.

Morgan Solar, a developer of concentrated solar photovoltaic systems, raised $3.5 million in additional Round A funding from Iberdrola Group, Nypro and Turnstone Capital Management.

The list from this week:

Automotive

Coda Automotive, which wants to bring a largely Chinese electric car to the U.S. this year, raised $25 million. The latest investment round brings the total to $74 million. Coda will use the money for final safety certification and building up its manufacturing capabilities.   A spin-out from low-speed vehicle maker Miles Automotive, Coda hopes to combine Chinese manufacturing with Wall Street and Washington connections. Coda's car is based around a gas-burning car already produced in China by state-owned Hafei.

Water

Quench USA, which makes water purification systems for offices that get rid of those plastic jug-based dispensers, raised $13 million from Virgin Green Fund and Element Partners.

Solar

Clean Power Finance announced the first close of a $6.9M financing round co-led by Claremont Creek Ventures and Clean Pacific Ventures, along with Sand Hill Angels and clean tech investor Gary Kremen.    CPF provides a standardized software tool that lets solar panel installers speed up the sales proposal, rebate and lead generation process. CPF supplies the integrated software but soon expects to provide a means of financing solar roofs for home and business owners. Kremen asks, "Why can't buying solar be like buying a car with POS (point of sale) financing?   Solar is in roughly the same price range - you should get credit at the same time you make the purchase."

Innovalight, a solar start-up based in Sunnyvale California, won $18 million in their Round D of venture funding. Innovalight has developed a silicon ink -- "perfectly crystalline silicon particles 5nm in size" in an ink-like matrix which CEO Conrad Burke claims can boost the efficiencies of crystalline silicon wafers by more than 1%. Burke hinted it could be up to 2%.   The $18 million brings the total funding for the company to $58 million -- in addition to development funds from the US Department of Energy. In a difficult funding environment, especially for mid and late stage firms, this Round D financing was led by EDB Investments of Singapore along with Vertex Venture Holdings, Apax Partners, ARCH Venture Partners, Convexa Capital, Harris & Harris Group, Sevin Rosen Funds and Triton Ventures.

Lighting

Digital Lumens raised $5 million from Stata Venture Partners, Flybridge Capital, and Black Coral Capital as per an SEC filing According to their website - they're working on lighting innovations that reduce customers’ energy consumption and carbon footprint. They've given me a polite "no comment" in response to my inquiries and their investors remain silent as well. Using my meager powers of persuasion I was able to get this comment from an insider, "They've got some of the first cost-effective LED-based lighting."

Smart Grid

EcoFactor's $2.4 million raise was covered by Michael Kanellos here. The company, which has created a system that controls home energy consumption through broadband gateways, came out of stealth mode in early November. A few weeks later it won the prize at the Cleantech Open. Their funding comes from Claremont Creek Ventures et al.

Verdiem raised $4.7 million for PC energy management from Kleiner Perkins, Microsoft and others according to an SEC document.

And More

Simbol Mining raised $1.375 million from MDV and Firelake Capital. Simbol is an early stage company commercializing zero waste, zero carbon footprint production processes for lithium, EMD, and zinc battery chemicals produced from geothermal brines.

Nordic Windpower raised $12.2M of a $38M round for their two-blade wind turbines according to an SEC doc. Previous investment came from Goldman Sachs, Impax Asset Management, I2BF Venture Capital, Pulsar Energy Capital et al.