“Ultra-powerful” methanol fuel cell to drive construction equipment
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Oorja Protonics, a Sequoia Capital-backed Silicon Valley company developing an alcohol-based fuel cell technology for several years.
Today, Oorja is finally pulling off the wraps on its first application, a fuel cell for commercial and construction vehicles the company calls “ultra-powerful” in comparison to older technologies.
Oorja’s cell will power the electrical systems of vehicles like the pallet loaders used in large warehouses. The cells can be used in… Continue Reading
SchemaLogic offers tagging to media and corporations
SchemaLogic, a company that wants to use “tagging” to transform the internal archives at media companies and large businesses, has just raised $12.7 million more to do so.
The company has signed a deal with Associated Press, Corbis and others to let freelance writers and photographers to use tagging for their articles and photos so that the content can be found and stored quickly and more easily targeted by advertising. It also wants to let businesses… Continue Reading
Open-Silicon, chip design company, gets $10M
Open-Silicon, a Milpitas, Calif. chip design company, said it has raised $10 million in a fourth round of funding led by venture capital fund Bridgescale Partners.
Previous investors Norwest Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, InterWest Partners, and Artis Capital Management also participated in this round.
Thus continues a remarkable run of co-investing between Sequoia and Artis, a hedge fund that employs the son of a Sequoia partner.
The statement is here.
Oorja Protonics, alcohol-based fuel cell company, gets $15M
Oorja Protonics, a secretive Fremont, Calif. start-up developing fuel cell systems that run on alcohols like methanold and ethanol, has just raised $15 million in a second round of funding, according to a regulatory filing cited by PE Week.
Alcohol-based fuel cells are still in the early stage of development, but they’ve already been introduced for commercial use in laptops, camcorders, MP3 players, mobile phones, and other devices. There’s an overview in the Space Review,… Continue Reading
Dash fills coffers for Web-connected car navigation
updated
Dash, the start-up offering the first car navigation device designed to be permanently linked to the Internet, has raised $25 million in a second round of funding.
The Mountain View Dash will launch its device in the Bay Area in late April, and nationally this fall, goes up against a host of other market incumbents, none aspiring to be as continuously connected to the Internet.
These other players are Garmin, TomTom and Magellan. Last week, Garmin released… Continue Reading
YouTube spoils made official, co-founders did well
YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen are each worth about $326 million as a result of Google’s purchase of the video-sharing company, documents registered by Google Wednesday reveal.
Their takes are five times that of third co-founder Jawed Karim, who returned to Stanford before YouTube was bought last year. Karim got 137,443 shares, worth about $65 million based on the $470 closing price of Google’s stock yesterday. Hurley and Chen both have 694,087 shares.
For… Continue Reading
YouTube and Sequoia Capital’s family ties
Sequoia Capital is Silicon Valley’s most respected venture capital firm, having made money from backing Yahoo, Google, YouTube and many others.
It’s been known for some time that Sequoia Capital’s partner Mark Kvamme is married to the daughter of Sequoia partner Pierre Lamond. No big deal, right?
Now it emerges that, through reporting of PE Week’s Alex Haislip (sorry the full version is subscription only), that David Lamond, son of Pierre (Pierre pictured here), is an investor… Continue Reading
Aruba raises $5M, sweetening pot before going public?
Aruba Networks, the Sunnyvale provider of wireless LAN technology which we reported earlier appeared to be getting ready to go public, has raised around $5 million in more funding, according to a regulatory filing cited by PE Week.
This brings the round total to around $30 million. Artis Capital Management led the overall round, and was joined by Matrix Partners, Sequoia Capital, Trinity Ventures and WK Technology Funds.
If the company really is going public… Continue Reading