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Sidewalks used to be so much nicer, before the Segway Personal Transporter started hitting the streets. Remember being able to walk peacefully along, happy on the two legs God gave us? Then Dean Kamen brought us the Segway, and suddenly you couldn’t step outside without one whizzing by. Everyone and their neighbor bought one, making Kamen and his investors rich –

Whoops, sorry, wrong future. In retrospect, it seems at least a little silly that the Segway got as much hype as it did back in late 2001 and 2002, to the point of top Kleiner Perkins VC John Doerr saying that Segway would be the fastest outfit in history to reach $1 billion in sales. Yet the firm has also survived thus far, and appears to be expanding the $10 million third round of funding we reported in January, according to a filing dug up by VentureWire.

Segway’s blessing and curse is its oddball design. It’s packed with electronics and gyroscopes that keep the vehicle balanced and make rolling around at the pace of a running human effortless. Unfortunately, aside from being ridiculous looking, Segways are also expensive, a combination that has sent most potential consumers buyers packing to alternatives like Edge scooters. Nobody except the company knows how many have been bought for recreational use, but the fan club has long since disbanded, and in most places, just spotting one makes for a red-letter day.

What has saved Segway, at least so far, is its business customers. Police departments and security love to use Segways for what were previously onerous foot patrols. Warehousing businesses and golf clubs have bought them for employee and visitor use. Google, predictably enough, offers them as a perk to employees. Other uses abound — anywhere walking, biking or driving is impractical, a Segway can likely fit in.

What’s interesting about the reported funding is that one of the new investors is the Masdar Clean Tech Fund, an arm of Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Initiative. While that could just be a venture investment, it’s possible it was more of a strategic funding — after all, Abu Dhabi will need to figure out some zero-emissions transportation options for its promised zero-emissions city.

If Segway is selling worldwide, especially to other small cities that need a local transportation option, the company could get recoup its investments, which have now reached almost $150 million of venture capital and $100 million in development costs. And though the fan club may be dead, Segway is still reaching for a consumer base, with its recently launched Segway Social network. There’s also the strong likelihood that the company will roll out other transporter designs in the future.

Backers on the round, which VentureWire says is $35 million total with a recent tranche of $9.5 million, include Kleiner Perkins, CSFB Private Equity, the Masdar fund, buyout firm Duff, Ackerman & Goodrich, and others.

[Photo credit: Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten; Flickr]

With a fresh $32 million funding going to nanotechnoloy firm NanoGram, mainly for development of next-generation solar cells, it’s a good time to point out some up-and-coming technologies that work on very small scales to make photovoltaic cells more efficient.

NanoGram has already had several commercial successes, including inventions in both electronics and medicine. However, the company has of late turned its sights on boosting the efficiency of solar cells.

The company is working on ultra-thin crystalline silicon which it says will reduce the cost of silicon-based solar cells to below $1 per watt hour, a price point that is generally considered a breakthrough.

Its latest funding is notable because Nanogram had so far only taken $27 million in funding since its inception in 1996, growing to over $20 million in annual revenue. It plans to use the additional $32 million (investor details at bottom) in part toward a pilot plant for solar modules.

SunFlake A/S, a European company, makes the same claim of being able to manufacture a low-cost cell with about 30 percent efficiency, roughly double the efficiency of the average solar cell available today.

Headed by noted scientist Martin Aagesen, the company plans to make use of a type of nanowire discovered by Aagesen that he calls “nanoflakes.” Blessed with a perfect crystalline structure, nanoflakes are capable of absorbing nearly all light directed at them, according to the company.

By growing its nanowires into a low-grade silicon substrate, SunFlake will reduce the need for large amounts of high-quality polysilicon when making cells. However, it has yet to announce plans to commercially manufacture cells.

Another methods on the horizon is the use of metal oxide nanoparticals in cells. Dr. Jin Zhang of the University of California, Santa Cruz, plans to use a combination of nanoparticles and quantum dots (using nano-crystals, as SunFlake does) to make a highly efficient solar cell.

(Nanotechnology, by the way, refers the field of science that works at the atomic and molecular scale, roughly between 1 to 100 nanometers. Elements and compounds take on different characteristics when they are so tiny, and studying them is leading to new users and inventions, as we’re seeing here.)

A team led by Zhang and including other researchers from China and Mexico recently tested a prototype cell using a nanocomposite material of their own devising. The cell performed even better than the researchers expected.

“We’re manipulating the energy levels of the nanocomposite material so the electrons can work more efficiently for electricity generation,” Zhang told ScienceDaily. His research is currently supported by various governmental groups from the three countries involved.

One note when considering these up-and-coming technologies: It will probably be about five years before they hit the market in force. However, as new technologies become more common, existing cost balances between different solar technologies, like polysilicon and CIGS cells, will likely be upset.

Finally, returning to NanoGram’s funding, the company brought on new investors Global Cleantech Capital, Masdar Clean Tech Fund, Mitsui Ventures, Nagase & Company, Nanostart AG, TEL Venture Capital, and Yasuda Enterprise Development for the round. Existing investors ATA Ventures, Bay Partners, Harris & Harris, Institutional Venture Partners, Nth Power, Rockport Capital Partners, SBV Venture Partners, and Technology Partners also participated.

updated

Solar cell manufacturer HelioVolt Corp. has raised $77 million in a second round of financing, despite the setbacks seen at a number of other companies using the same “CIGS” technology.

Tech Confidential reports the news here.

Update: This morning, VentureWire (subscription only) has followed and notes the round’s investors: Abu Dhabi’s government-affiliated Masdar Clean Tech Fund and U.S.-based Paladin Capital Group led the round for the Austin, Tex. company. Also participating were Solucar Energias, the solar subsidiary of Madrid-based industrial company Abengoa SA, Morgan Stanley Principal Investments and Sunton United Energy, a Utah venture capital firm.

The company had already raised $9 million.