SunRun teams with Virgance to finance solar for consumers
Hard economic times mean fewer consumers will shell out for expensive solar panels. Also hard hit are startups that offer no-money-down programs to lease panels or buy their power but can’t find banks to partner with. So, teaming with SunRun — one of the few outfits that still has a healthy line of financing — is a minor coup for Virgance, a company that plans to sign up thousands of new solar users.
I’ve written about… Continue Reading
Solar Power Partners takes on $32M for solar panel sales
Add another solar-as-a-service company to the list of those unfazed by the recession. Solar Power Partners, a Mill Valley, Calif. company that installs panels for commercial customers but retains ownership in order to sell the electricity from them, has taken on $32 million more in funding.
The money was reported this morning by peHUB. SPP also took money less than six months ago, which at the time was enough to put it over the $100 million… Continue Reading
BrightView picks up $6M for improved solar manufacturing
BrightView, a solar tech firm that hopes to improve the production of photovoltaic solar cells, has raised $6 million in a first round of funding. (The company is not to be confused with BrightView Technologies, an optics company in North Carolina.)
Rather than manufacturing its own cells, BrightView plans to work with other companies to optimize its manufacturing and lower costs. Due to its proximity to Europe, the company plans to work there; one of its… Continue Reading
Syngas startup Ze-gen takes $20M to torch trash
Ze-gen, a company that plans to round up waste from construction sites and turn it into gases that can be used to generate electricity, has won $20 million in funding to help build its first full-size facility.
Based in Boston, Mass., Ze-gen has been moving quickly to prove its process at a small test facility, completed in the second half of last year, and start building a larger, commercial plant.
The gasification process is a bit different… Continue Reading
Graphene Energy raises $500,000 for ultracapacitor storage
Graphene Energy, an Austin, Tex. startup based on technology from the University of Texas and Virginia’s College of William and Mary, has taken a $500,000 seed round from Quercus Trust and 21Ventures.
Ultracapacitors (insulating layers between conductors that house electric fields) are being explored by a variety of startups for their energy storage, usually as a component accompanying batteries in electric cars. Graphene is seeking to improve the technology by improving capacitance, or the amount of… Continue Reading
SolFocus takes on $47.5M more in quest to sell concentrating solar
SolFocus, the most heavily-funded concentrating solar startup around, has just drawn a bit further ahead of the pack with $47.5 million in fresh capital. With the money, the company has edged near $150 million in total funding, and with luck, widespread installation of a currently rare type of solar panel.
In the concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) arrays of SolFocus and similar companies, a tiny, highly-efficient solar cell becomes the focus of sunlight intensified many times over by… Continue Reading
The termite’s blessing: ZeaChem finds more support
Poor termites. They’ll have no part in the ZeaChem facilities that may someday pump out millions of gallons of cellulosic ethanol, even though it’s the humble bug’s legacy that allowed it all to happen. Lakewood, Colo.-based ZeaChem has raised $34 million more for its process, the most important step of which uses a microorganism from the termite’s digestive tract to break down wood and similar materials into fuel.
ZeaChem chief executive Jim Imbler thinks he’s starting… Continue Reading
Xunlight gets $7M loan to work on rooftop thin-film lines
Commercial rooftops sporting solar panels are becoming a familiar sight. But the technology used is still changing, with companies like thin-film panel maker Xunlight working to change the way big box retailers and others get their solar energy.
Xunlight has just received an additional $7 million in a loan from the state of Ohio, where the company is based, to speed work on a 25 megawatt production line in Toledo. The facility should be done next… Continue Reading
Motion Computing picks up $6M for tablet PCs
Just a day after the long-suffering smartphone and handheld maker Palm picked up a $100 million investment from Elevation Partners, mobile computing startup Motion Computing is announcing a smaller, $6 million investment of its own.
Motion Computing makes slate tablet PCs that are used within industries, especially health care and mobile service. The company has three main lines of tablets, ranging from semi-rugged to fully ruggedized.
The Austin, Tex. company last raised $25 million in 2004, and… Continue Reading
KaloBios tacks on $12M more for engineered antibodies
South San Francisco, Calif.-based KaloBios, a biotech company that raised $20 million just five months ago, has added another $12 million in a second close of its fourth round of venture capital.
KaloBios has three antibody products in development, each of which targets a specific set of diseases. Two of the candidates, KB001 and KB002, have made it to Phase 2 clinical testing.
The new funding was led by Baxter International, one of the world’s largest healthcare… Continue Reading
Interconnectivity developer Oxford Semiconductor acquired
Oxford Semiconductor, a fabless developer of connectivity devices, has been acquired by PLX Technology, a similar company that specializes in PCI Express, an expansion card standard commercialized by Intel.
OxSemi was working with several interconnect standards to make devices for the home and small office storage markets. It was founded in 1992 and raised over $30 million in venture funding during its lifetime.
The acquisition is valued at slightly over $14 million, plus shares of PLX. OxSemi… Continue Reading
Strengthened by partnerships, cellulosic ethanol maker Coskata raises more money
The cellulosic ethanol company Coskata has managed to pull in a $40 million third investment round despite the recession. The amount is a significant boost for the company, which last took money early this year.
Coskata is becoming something of a standout among the newest generation of ethanol makers, by virtue of its ability to draw attention from larger corporations. Whether because of its technology or simply having excellent connections (or both), it has scored both… Continue Reading
Solairedirect raises $26M for French solar power
A Paris company called Solairedirect has raised $26 million (€20 million) for solar power production, including both rooftop and ground installations of solar panels.
The outfit calls itself an “integrated solar power provider,” with its fingers in all stages of the business, from manufacturing the panels to the maintenance and operation of installed equipment.
According to a press release, Solairedirect has 150 employees, and 300 megawatts of solar power currently in development.
Existing investors Demeter Partners, Schneider Electric Ventures… Continue Reading
More greenhouse gas monitoring — Clear Standards lands first funding
With a carbon cap and trade now a near certainty for the United States, investors are rushing to fund companies that will help create the market. A Sterling, Va. company called Clear Standards is the latest, with a new $4 million for an inventory system corporations can use to track their greenhouse gas emissions.
Measuring emissions is becoming a more exact science as companies like this one consolidate studies showing the environmental impact of thousands of… Continue Reading
Raydiance raises $20M for lasers, lasers everywhere
Laser maker Raydiance has picked up $20 million more in its quest to manufacture lasers for everyday commercial use in medicine, manufacturing, energy and other fields.
Raydiance’s lasers are a type called ultrashort pulse (USP) lasers, which pulse light on the femtosecond time scale — a method that can help keep excess heat from building up, thus preventing damage to surrounding material. But the company’s real innovation, it claims, is in making lasers easier to acquire… Continue Reading
Banks show confidence in solar — SunRun secures $105M financing
We may be in the depths of a credit crunch, but some banks still seem willing to give loans to renewable energy projects. This morning, solar services firm SunRun is announcing a $105 million commitment by U.S. Bancorp (USB) to buy about 2,000 of the residential projects it installs.
Keep in mind that this isn’t equity or debt money that SunRun itself will receive. Because the company leases out solar arrays that it installs on customers’… Continue Reading
Another Indian solar services firm snags Silicon Valley funding
Azure Power, a Delhi, India company that develops large solar projects both on and off the commercial power grid in its home country, has raised an undisclosed first round of funding from Foundation Capital and Helion Venture Partners.
The investment is the second that Silicon Valley venture firms have made in Indian solar in less than two weeks. Previously, a firm called Kotak Urja raised $8 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Sherpalo Ventures and… Continue Reading
Qteros readies for near-term cellulosic ethanol production
A technology that might offer some respite to first-generation ethanol makers like Verasun and Pacific Ethanol has received a significant $25 million from backers including oil giant BP and George Soros’s investment fund. The company in question is Qteros, formerly called SunEthanol, a little-known startup placing big bets on a plucky microbe.
Qteros is one of a large group of companies trying to engineer a microorganism to cheaply break down woody matter, including everything from corn… Continue Reading
EnerG2 aims to improve ultracapacitors for electric cars, industry
EnerG2 Inc., an ultracapacitor startup that has kept quiet until now, is launching today with the official announcement that it has raised $8.5 million in its first round of financing. Founded in 2003, it has spent five years developing electrode materials that it claims can boost the performance of ultracapacitors, devices that are useful in electric cars and smaller electronic devices.
Unlike batteries, which store electricity chemically, ultracapacitors store energy as electrical fields and physically separate the… Continue Reading
CarbonFlow adds $1M as it approaches software release
Carbon-trading software company CarbonFlow has added a $1 million follow-on to its first round of $2.9 million, which it first announced in July. The extra investment was provided by @Ventures.
CarbonFlow’s trading software is designed to comply with the carbon standards set by the Kyoto Protocol, although it also includes national standards. Users, typically corporations, can track, buy or sell carbon credits with the system.
The company was founded in 2006 by Neal Dikeman, a green tech… Continue Reading