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BridgeLux has secured a hefty $40 million round to use for product development and expansion, despite facing ongoing patent litigation from giant LED maker Cree.

BridgeLux, like Cree, makes the chip that is the light-emitting part of LEDs, which it then sells to other firms. The company’s chips are predominantly in electronics and automotive applications, but are also being delivered for use in general lighting for homes and businesses.

The funding is notable because it’s one of the larger LED investments to date. BridgeLux is one of a generation of startups that is working toward the point, likely only a couple years off now, that LED lighting becomes widespread in the consumer lighting market.

In the United States alone, that market is estimated to be worth $1 billion by 2011, growing at about 37 percent each year. Other segments of the LED market will also grow significantly, if not quite as quickly. Adoption should be driven by the higher efficiency, reliability and safety of LEDs over other forms of lighting.

Some other LED companies that have taken funding within the last month including Illumitex, with $5.25 million; Optoelectronix, which took $6 million; and Luminus Devices, which grabbed a whopper round of $72 million in early March.

BridgeLux, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., also took $23 million last August; its total funding is now at $71 million. The lead investor for this round was VentureTech Alliance, which was joined by DCM, El Dorado Ventures, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Chrysalix Energy and Harris & Harris Group.

Along with alternative energy generation comes a host of attendant technologies, from storage and transmission, to grid management, and measurement and analysis. Fat Spaniel is in that final category, with a set of tools used to measure power output of installations like solar cells.

The company has taken a substantial $18 million second round of funding, which it plans to use to expand in Europe and reach profitability in mid-2009. It has done more than a thousand installations in 12 countries, it says

Fat Spaniel makes software which works with hardware supplied by third-party manufacturers. Together, the two can accurately track output from alternative energy sources such as solar cells. Without such tools, it’s a matter of guesswork to determine how much energy is being produced.

The typical users are system installers, or companies that actually set up energy generation systems, whether for individuals or for giant corporations like Wal-Mart.

Fat Spaniel is working on adding more advanced data analysis, including visualization tools and granular viewing which could help pin-point trouble spots. Continuing to improve on its software will also help the company when a large competitor like GE or Agilent enters the market, which chief technology officer Chris Beekhuis told us he expects to happen within a year and a half.Ignition Partners led the $18 million funding, while Chrysalix Energy and Element Partners (formerly called DFJ Element) also participated. To date, Fat Spaniel has taken a total of $25 million in venture funding.

Purfresh is the new name of Novazone, a Livermore, Calif., company that disinfects and protects water and fresh produce, and which is expanding to cover more aspects of the food business.

Purfresh offers one of a number of companies rushing to find new, efficient ways to clean pathogens from food supplies. People and businesses are becoming less tolerant of harsh chemical cleansers that have been used for such purposes, in part because of sensitivity about the environment.

Demand has turned Purfresh’s business into a rocket ship. The company has existed since the mid-1990s, but over the past few years, it has picked up more than 300 corporate customers including giants like Coca Cola, PepsiCo and Procter & Gamble.

The company changed its name to reflect its growing product line, which now also includes water purification systems, sunshields for increased crop yield, and an informatics system called Intellipur which helps track food in storage or transit.

Those new businesses are where much of the investment is going. CEO David Cope told us that the company “could be profitable tomorrow afternoon,” if it stuck with its developed ozone equipment business, but that it will instead be focusing on developing its newer product lines. At its current rate, Cope expects the company to hit profitability in about a year.

Purfresh has a proprietary technology for using ozone, but other startups have their own angles. Ioteq, for example, an Australian company we recently wrote about, uses a unique iodine-based technology to purify water better than chlorine.

The $25 million Purfresh funding was led by Chilton Investment Co. Previous investors Chrysalix Energy, Grauer Capital and Foundation Capital also participated, alongside one unnamed strategic investor. Purfresh has raised $42 million to date.

Featured companies: Akermin, Fluxion Biosciences, iCardiacTechnologies, Wellocities

UPDATED: Expanded items on Fluxion, Akermin, and Wellocities.

Fluxion Bio draws in $6.9M for cell-analysis tools — Fluxion Biosciences, a San Francisco developer of cellular-analysis tools, raised $6.9 million in a second funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Investors included Kodiak Venture Partners, Claremont Creek Ventures and Life Science Angels.

Fluxion takes the idea of running chemical reactions against living cells — a key step in screening and analyzing the activity of drug candidates — to its logical conclusion with a system designed to measure biochemical changes involving, and sometimes within, a single cell. The company’s first microfluidic system is intended to allow researchers to study cells that adhere to surfaces, such as platelets that stick to arterial walls in the formation of plaque, and biofilms, which are drug-resistant sheets excreted by bacteria for protection.

Fluxion is also working on tools for studying electrochemical signaling within cells, which the company hopes to launch next year. The current financing may also make it possible for Fluxion to launch a third instrument that will image individual cells while they float in solution. Existing cell-imaging systems only work when cells are anchored in place.

The company could be profitable as early as 2010, Fluxion executives told VentureWire. It has raised a total of $7.4 million since its founding in 2005.

Bioenzyme-catalyst co. Akermin raises $5M — Akermin, a St. Louis developer of new biocatalytic enzymes, raised $5 million in a second tranche of its first funding round. Investors included Prolog Ventures, OnPoint Technologies, Chrysalix Energy and the St. Louis Arch Angels.

Akermin works with catalytic enzymes — molecules that speed particular chemical reactions — made via biotechnology that could replace precious-metal catalysts now used in fuel cells. The company is developing prototype “biofuel cells” and thin-fuel cells the company refers to as “bio-batteries.” Enzymes should theoretically be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than metal catalysts.

Fuel cells, which could theoretically replace conventional batteries and engines in some applications, are one of those clean technologies that have been on the table for decades in one form or another. However, existing technologies generally aren’t considered cost- or energy-effective when compared to burning fossil fuels or using traditional batteries.

Akermin is part of a wave of startups working on overcoming the difficulties in making fuel cells. Another is Bloom Energy, a secretive Silicon Valley startup that has nevertheless received plenty of press.

Akermin’s technology is a polymer “stabilizer” for these enzymes that’s designed to immobilize them, stabilize them and enhance their operating lifetime. The company has raised a total of just under $8.5 million since its founding.

Online health service Wellocities draws $1M — Toronto’s Wellocities, a diabetes-focused health-information site, raised $1 million in seed funding to create a more general online health service for Canadians. XDL Capital Group provided the funding.

The company didn’t say much more about its online strategy or how it would differ from a host of new, mostly U.S.-based sites that offer everything from detailed health information to physician directories to patient communities. In diabetes, Wellocities provides an online community and ways for diabetics to track their progress in maintaining control of their weight and blood-sugar levels.

OTHER HEADLINES OF NOTE:

• iCardiac raises undisclosed round for electrocardiogram cardiac-risk systems (release)