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In the solar cell market, there are three broad categories. Thin-film manufacturers produce cells that convert little of the sun’s energy to electricity, but are dirt cheap. Opposite thin-film, companies like Spectrolab and Emcore make highly efficient, but very expensive cells. Between are the standard solar photovoltaic makers, with average efficiencies, and average prices.

The result is a pricing balance that gives each group a slice of the overall market. But what if it were possible to have the low production costs of a thin-film maker like First Solar, plus the 30 percent-plus efficiencies of a Spectrolab? Most industry pundits would say such disruptive technology is a pipe dream, but Wakonda Technologies is claiming to be able to make it happen.

What makes Spectrolab’s technology so expensive is the necessity building its cells atop a single-crystal wafer, a sheet of material that is painstakingly manufactured as a flawless whole in order to precisely control its electrical properties. Wakonda, a newly-emergy Medford, Mass. startup, says it has the ability to “simulate” those wafers with a cheap metal foil, much as thin-film makers do. Think of it as a bit like replacing expensive real diamonds with cubic zirconium.

Unfortunately, Wakonda isn’t giving many real specifics on its technology. Its credibility instead relies on an all-star cast of backers. The venture firms helping supply its $9.5 million financing include Advanced Technology Ventures, General Catalyst Partners and Polaris Venture Partners. Notably, Wakonda also has the financial support of Applied Ventures, the investing arm of Applied Materials, a large tech company that has some of the most advanced thin-film manufacturing technology around.

If Wakonda’s technology lives up to the early claims of thin-film manufacturing prices with over 30 percent cell efficiencies, it will not only leapfrog the existing solar industry, but will also be less expensive than any existing energy generation technology, including coal, natural gas and nuclear.

Still, talk is cheap, and Wakonda’s technology has yet to move out of the labs. And in case it does meet its targets and leapfrogs the existing solar industry, it still has some contenders, such as the ultra-cheap solar concentrating technology that Sunrgi claims to have. Here’s to both of them living up to their promises.

Online games powerhouse Turbine confirmed that it has raised $40 million, though the actual investors are different from what was previously rumored.

Time Warner and GGV Capital led the round along with existing investors Highland Capital Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, Tudor Ventures and Columbia Capital. The investment will be used to accelerate Turbine’s growth in online games. Previously, Granite Ventures was the rumored lead.

Turbine is expanding its properties, including “Lord of the Rings Online,” which is being launched around the world. Jim Crowley, CEO of the Massachusetts company, said in an interview that the Asia expansion alone will bring millions of subscribers to that game. Turbine also wants to fund the expansion of properties like Dungeons & Dragons Online, which on its own isn’t generating enough revenue to fund expansion. And then the company has a couple of more secret projects in the works.

My guess remains that they’re going to do a console MMO game based on The Lord of the Rings Online. Taking the MMO to the consoles would be a big deal and would help it compete head-to-head with console MMO rivals such as Sony and NCSoft.

It seems like a good idea, at first: Pipe carbon dioxide emissions from power plants or industrial processes through water containing algae, and the algae will absorb the CO2 for its own growth, in turn being harvested to make biodiesel. But like most good ideas, the implementation has proven more than a little tricky.

GreenFuel Technologies is a startup we’ve covered followed as it moved from high-flying newcomer, to apparent failure, back to spotlight darling. The “apparent failure” part began with problems in scaling. GreenFuel’s plan appears to work fine on a small scale, but when it tried to do a commercial-size project last year, the algae over-performed to the point of killing itself off, doubling costs and leading to layoffs of 50 people.

Instead of letting the company crumble, one of its investors, Polaris Venture Partners, sent in general partner Bob Metcalfe for emergency resuscitation. The move appears to have worked — a $5.5 bridge loan kept the company afloat until two months ago, when we were able to report a $92 million project financing for the company to build a bioreactor in Europe. Now $13.9 million more has been provided in an extension to its second round of financing, for further development.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean blue skies ahead. In fact, a full $6.3 million of that amount will go toward retiring debt — likely the same bridge the company took to survive. The $7.6 million remaining isn’t much, especially considering that part is going toward construction of a project the company has not yet announced.

The big question is what will happen in Europe. The company is likely moving at a frantic pace to re-prove the technology and get a third round of funding, not to mention staving off competitors with the same idea (but more opportunities left to screw up).

The round was provided entirely be existing investors, with Access Private Equity leading, alongside Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Polaris. The company is based in Cambridge, Mass.

Sprout, the startup behind an easy-to-use tool for creating Flash applications, has been having a very good year. It launched in January at DEMO (where it snagged a “DEMO god” award), made its app builder publicly available in March, then released a bunch of new features in April. Now it has raised $5 million in a second round of venture funding.

Through Sprout, you can use a “what you see is what you get” interface reminiscent of Photoshop to build applications that the company calls “sprouts”. The apps are basically widgets, but with the interactivity of a Flash website. The process is made especially accessible through Sprout’s templates, which can be customized with just a few clicks.

Sprout added compatibility with a number of other sites and applications in April. Now, you can use your sprout to display your Twitter messages, make phone calls via Ribbit and feed user survey information directly into Google Spreadsheets. Even better, Sprout released a software developer kit that allows other web services to integrate with Sprout’s platform.

The release of Sprout Verision 2.0 is imminent, says chief executive Carnet Williams, and the new funding will be used expand the engineering, business development, marketing and support teams. The round was led by Polaris Venture Partners, with participation from existing investor Global Venture Capital and Lotus founder Mitch Kapor. The San Francisco- and Honolulu-based startup was previously raised $3.3 million.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Antibody-discovery startup Adimab raises new funding (release)
• Lung-device maker Spiration gets $19M (release)
• Sample-prep startup Protein Discovery pulls in $10M (release)
• Inogen takes in $13M for portable oxygen device (VentureWire)
• Healthcare IT concern Medaptus raises $11M for expansion (VentureWire)
• Contract lab Synexis raises $14M (peHUB)
• Medical-device VC firm BioStar Ventures takes in $24M of $80M fund (peHUB)
• Halsa Pharma gets $250K for “natural” obesity-control treatment (release)
• Diagnostics provider Lab21 acquires NPTech (peHUB)
• Galil Medical names Martin Emerson CEO (release)

Antibody-discovery startup Adimab raises new funding – Lebanon, N.H.-based Adimab, a biotech working on new ways to discover antibody drugs, has raised a second round of funding. The company didn’t disclose the size of the round.

Adimab, which raised $6 million last July, is one of several startups looking to design new antibody drugs in bioengineered yeast cells, as we wrote at the time. (Alder Biopharmaceuticals, which raised $40 million in January, is another.) The technique promises to be much faster — and freer of patent restrictions — than current methods. When Adimab completes its current manufacturing facility in the second quarter, it claims it will be able to produce a panel of human antibodies against a particular target in just 90 days, instead of the year or more traditional methods can require.

Investors included Polaris Venture Partners and SV Life Sciences, who also invested in the company’s first round.

Lung-device maker Spiration gets $19M – Spiration, a Redmond, Wash., medical-device startup, raised $18.5 million in a seventh funding round. Investors included Versant Ventures, Olympus Medical Systems, New Enterprise Associates, New Leaf Venture Partners, InterWest Partners, Investor Growth Capital and Three Arch Partners.

Spiration has now raised a total of $97 million. It is developing a set of one-way valves for emphysema that can be implanted in the lung’s airways via a minimally invasive procedure. These valves are designed to shunt air away from diseased portions of the lung and redirect it to healthier areas. The company said the funding would support commercialization of its device in Europe and to complete studies for regulatory approval in the U.S.

Other startups working on similar technology include Emphasys Medical, Pulmonx and Broncus Technologies.

Sample-prep startup Protein Discovery pulls in $10M – Knoxville, Tenn.-based Protein Discovery, a biotech with new laboratory technology for protein identification, raised $10 million in a third funding round. Investors included Santé Ventures, Memphis Biomed Ventures, the Southern Appalachian Fund, and the Nashville Capital Network.

The startup is developing technology that aims to “simplify” the process of preparing biological samples for protein analysis. The details are probably too much for anyone who’s not a lab technician themselves, but feel free to check out the company’s explanation if you dare.)

Inogen takes in $13M for portable oxygen device – Inogen, a Goleta, Calif., medical-device maker, raised $12.6 million in its fifth funding round, VentureWire reports. Investors included Accuitive Medical Ventures, Arboretum Ventures, Avalon Ventures, Novo A/S, Numenor Ventures and Versant Ventures.

The company makes and sells portable oxygen-delivery systems for patients suffering from a lung problem called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The product has been on the market for several years, and Inogen says it believes it might take several more before it’s in a position to be acquired or to go public.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Luminous Medical raises $24M for automated glucose monitoring (release)
• Alimera Sciences gets $30M for eye-disease drug (release)
• Vaccine maker LigoCyte draws $28M (release)
• Heartbeat tracker CardioNet trims IPO, aims for listing today (IPOhome)
• Axial Biotech takes in $6M for spinal diagnostics (release)
• Insulin bioengineer enGene receives $6.4M (release)
• GlucoLight raises funding for, well, glucose monitoring (release)
• Germany’s InflaRx gets seed funding for sepsis work (release)
• Cell imager Amnis pulls in $3.5M (VentureWire)
• Korea Bone Bank gets funding for bone transplants (release)

Luminous Medical raises $24M for automated glucose monitoring – Carlsbad, Calif.-based Luminous Medical, a medical-device maker, raised $23.5 million in a second funding round. Investors included Adams Street Partners, RiverVest Venture Partners, Finistere Ventures, De Novo Ventures and Latterell Venture Partners.

Luminous is developing an automated blood-sugar sensor for diabetic patients being treated in hospital intensive-care units and operating rooms. According to the company, keeping a tight rein on blood-glucose levels, which can soar or crash unexpectedly in diabetics, helps prevent complications while shortening hospital stays and reducing the risk of death.

Measuring such tight control, however, typically requires manually checking blood-glucose levels every 30 to 60 minutes, the company says. The Luminous device, by contrast, uses infrared spectroscopy — a technique that identifies particular molecules by measuring which wavelengths of light they absorb — to measure glucose and other blood chemicals non-invasively.

The company licensed its technology from InLight Solutions of Albuquerque, N.M., which previously invested $60 million in the technology. The device has not been approved by the FDA.

Axial Biotech takes in $6M for spinal diagnostics – Axial Biotech, a Salt Lake City diagnostic-test maker, raised $6 million as part of its second funding round. Investors included Johnson & Johnson Development, vSpring Capital and Ohio Biotech Group.

Axial, founded in 2002 by a group of spinal surgeons and geneticists, is an odd hybrid of biotech and devices. The company aims to produce tests that will predict and measure the severity of spinal problems such as scoliosis, as well as unspecified “motion-preserving technologies” — presumably an alternative to the stigmatizing back braces that orthopedists have long inflicted on children with the condition.

Insulin bioengineer enGene receives $6.4M – Canada’s enGene, a Vancouver biotech looking for ways to jump-start natural insulin production in diabetics, raised $6.4 million in a first round of funding. Investors included Saad Investments, Masa Life Science Ventures and private investors.

EnGene has an audacious — which is to say, of course, also quite chancy — approach to diabetes, in which the immune system attacks and kills insulin-producing “beta cells” in the pancreas (type 1 diabetes) or the body grows desensitized to insulin and requires higher levels (type 2 diabetes). In either case, patients often require insulin shots to maintain blood-sugar levels necessary or proper metabolism.

EnGene proposes to engineer cells in the small intestine — known as “K cells” — to produce insulin themselves. The advantage of this technique lies in the fact that K cells, like beta cells, respond to sugar levels in the gut, although they normally secrete a separate molecule. Once bioengineered to produce insulin as well, these cells could help regulate blood sugar automatically much the way beta cells normally do.

Of course, gene therapy has, in general, been a great disappointment so far, so there’s no shortage of uncertainty associated with this sort of technique. EnGene has tested its technique in mice, but not yet in humans. The startup plans to seek a second round of funding in the second half.

Alimera Sciences gets $30M for eye-disease drug – Alimera Sciences, an Alpharetta, Ga., drug developer with a focus on eye disease, raised $30 million in a third funding round. The company will now take a majority stake in its drug for diabetic macular edema, a vision-degrading complication of diabetes, which Alimera is developing with its partner pSividia.

We’ve written before about Alimera, which is presumably still contemplating an IPO this fall. All five of the company’s existing VC backers participated in the round: BA Venture Partners, Domain Associates, Intersouth Partners, Polaris Venture Partners and Venrock Associates.

Vaccine maker LigoCyte draws $28M – LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals, a Bozeman, Mont., biotech focused on new vaccines against infectious disease, raised $28 million in a third funding round. Investors included Forward Ventures, JAFCO, Novartis Venture Fund, Fidelity Biosciences, MedImmune Ventures, Athenian Venture Partners and MC Life Sciences Ventures.

The company is developing new vaccines using “virus-like particles” — usually structural viral proteins, minus the replication machinery packed in DNA or RNA — against gastroenteritis, anthrax and flu. It is also working on antibody drugs against inflammatory disease.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• Precision Thera merger with “blank check” Oracle Healthcare collapses (release)
• Sleep Solutions takes in $21M for sleep-apnea diagnostics (release)
• Trevena takes in $24M for drugs targeting G-proteins (release)
• “Specialty biotech” PanGenetics gets €23M for antibody drugs (release)
• Cancer-drug maker Unibioscreen pulls in €5M (release)
• Danish contract manufacturer CMC Biologics raises new funding (PDF release)
• Healthcare investor EDF Ventures postpones fourth fund (VentureWire)
• Global TB-drug alliance names former Sanofi-Aventis exec Jerome Premmeurer as CEO (release)
• Liquidia Tech names Neal Fowler as CEO (release)

(NOTE: Sorry for the minimal posting yesterday — I was at the Health 2.0 conference with extremely limited Internet connectivity. Normal posting resumes today.)

Precision Thera merger with “blank check” Oracle Healthcare collapses – This item is now a standalone post here.

Sleep Solutions takes in $21M for sleep-apnea diagnostics – Sleep Solutions, a Pasadena, Md., developer of diagnostic devices for sleep apnea, raised $20.5 million in a new funding round. Investors included TPG Biotechnology, MedVenture Associates, Emergent Ventures and Lava Ventures.

Sleep Solutions has developed a home-use diagnostic device for identifying sleep apnea, which are breathing difficulties during sleep. Diagnosing apnea has traditionally required patients to spend the night in a sleep laboratory. Left untreated, apnea can increase the risk of more serious problems, including stroke and heart attack.

Trevena takes in $24M for drugs targeting G-proteins – Trevena (no Web site), a Berwyn, Penn., biotech focused on a new area of drug discovery, raised $24 million in a first funding round. Investors included Alta Partners, Healthcare Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and Polaris Venture Partners.

Like many biotechs, Trevena plans to develop drugs that attack a particular biological mechanism rather than any particular disease. In this case, the company is targeting a class of proteins known as G-protein coupled receptors, or GPCR, which according to the company are affected by close to 40 percent of all drugs on the market today. The company didn’t describe its plans in any detail.

Healthcare investor EDF Ventures postpones fourth fund – EDF Ventures, an Ann Arbor, Mich., VC firm specializing in early-stage healthcare, has delayed a planned fourth fund, VentureWire reports. The postponement is related to the departure last year of managing director Beau Lasky, who left for Steamboat Ventures.

The firm intends to begin talking to potential investors again in several months. EDF didn’t say how much it hopes to raise in the new fund; its third fund closed in 2005 with $55 million in commitments.

TODAY’S HEADLINES:

• PEAK Surgical takes in $21M for electrosurgical tools (release)
• CellGate acquired by Australian cancer biotech ProGen for $2.5M (release)
• Traversa raises $2M for RNAi-delivery technologies (release)
• RemitDATA, Web-based healthcare-service co., takes in $5.5M (bizjournals.com)
• Spinal-implant maker Archus Orthopedics gets $10M venture loan (release)
• Promedior pulls down another $5.5M for fibrotic disease (release)
• Acrongenomics takes 11 percent stake in Molecular Vision (release)
• Hepatitis drug-developer Biolex withdraws IPO (IPO Home)
• Employee drug screener eScreen gets Carlyle investment (release)
• NovaMin raises $2.5M for dental-care products (VentureWire)
• Cardious receives $1.5M for heart-valve repair (VW)
• PE-backed Spire Healthcare buys PE-backed Classic Hospitals for £145M (FT)
• Aberdare Ventures promotes two principals to partner (release)

CellGate acquired by Australian cancer biotech ProGen for $2.5M –CellGate, a Redwood City, Calif., biotech working on new cancer drugs, sold itself to ProGen, an Australian biotech also focused on cancer, for the equivalent of about $2.5 million. The release is here. Needless to say, this represents a fire sale for a biotech that seems to have run out of time.

CellGate was pursuing drugs that aimed to shut down the growth of cancer cells either by inhibiting polyamine or by “turning down” the activity of cancer-related genes. ProGen will conduct an 18-month assessment of CellGate’s first drug candidate, a polyamine inhibitor that had already completed an early stage, phase I clinical trial, before deciding upon a mid-stage, phase II program. ProGen will also evaluate a stable of CellGate’s preclinical drug candidates.

ProGen will issue shares worth $1.5 million for CellGate’s assets, and will assume net liabilities of roughly another $1 million. The sale represents a significant loss for CellGate’s investors, including Healthcare ventures and New Enterprise Associates, who as recently as 2002 put $10 million into the company in a fourth funding round. I haven’t been able to piece together how much CellGate raised over its lifetime, although it’s certainly considerably more than that $10 million.

Traversa raises $2M for RNAi-delivery technologies – Traversa Therapeutics, a La Jolla, Calif., biotech working on ways to deliver RNA-based drugs to their cellular targets, raised $2 million in a first financing round. Investors included San Diego Tech Coast Angels, Mesa Verde Venture Partners and Morningside Group.

Traversa’s work is intimately involved with RNA interference, a newly discovered technique for “silencing” disease-related genes using short strands of RNA that trigger a natural cellular mechanism for shutting down genes. Getting those short RNA molecules into cells in the first place, however, isn’t particularly easy.

Traversa claims to have solved that problem, although it doesn’t appear to be saying how. The company will license its RNA-delivery approach to drug companies, and also offers it for use as a drug-screening technology.

RemitDATA, Web-based healthcare-service co., takes in $5M – Memphis, Tenn.-based RemitDATA, a provider of Web-based healthcare-data services, raised $5 million in a new funding round.Noro-Moseley Partners and SSM Partners provided the funding.

RemitDATA offers Web-based tools for individual physician practices designed to help them track insurance and Medicare reimbursements and scan paper records into digital form. The company also makes a sales-management tool for the homecare industry.

Promedior pulls down another $5.5M for fibrotic disease – Promedior, a Malvern, Pa., biotech focused on fibrotic disease, raised an additional $5.5 million as an extension to its first funding round. Polaris Venture Partners, Morgenthaler Ventures, HealthCare Ventures and Easton Capital participated in the financing.

Fibrotic disease is a general name for conditions that entail repeated bouts of inflammation followed by scarring that, over time, can lead to organ failure. Examples include heart failure, cirrhosis and kidney failure. Promedior aims to develop drugs that can slow or reverse the scarring process, and intends to begin clinical trials of its first drug candidate this year. The company previously raised $7 million in its first funding round.

Acrongenomics takes 11 percent stake in Molecular Vision – Acrongenomics, a Swiss company that acquires and develops life-sciences technology, took a 10.5 percent stake in Molecular Vision, a developer of credit-card sized diagnostic devices. Acrongenomics had previously announced its intent to acquire Molecular Vision, so presumably this is the first step in that plan. The release is here.

Hepatitis drug-developer Biolex withdraws IPO – Biolex Therapeutics, a Pittsboro, N.C., biotech developing ways to manufacture protein drugs in an aquatic-plant system, withdrew its planned $70 million IPO. We previously covered Biolex and its IPO dreams here.

NovaMin raises $2.5M for dental-care products – NovaMin, an Alachua, Fla., company working on tooth-remineralization products, raised $2.5 million in a third round of funding and expects another $2.5 million, VentureWire reports. Intersouth Partners provided the financing.

Cardious aims at $1.5M for heart-valve repair – Cardious, a Northfield, Minn., medical-device company working on a heart-valve bypass device, is raising $1.5 million in a first funding round, VentureWire reports. The company aims to raise the funds from angel investors. Cardious is developing an aortic-valve replacement that can be put in place on a beating heart, rerouting blood flow around the damaged valve.