VentureBeat

Two days ago it was Optimal Technologies with $25 million toward software for electrical grids; today, it’s SmartSynch with $20 million for wirelessly communicating meters. I haven’t gone back and done an official count, but with well over half a dozen large fundings in the past few months, the efficiency-focused smart grid space looks to have emerged as the hot cleantech venture space du jour.

“Smart grid” is a catch-all term for a number of technologies that aim at measuring and controlling the process of sending electricity from generation plants to homes and businesses. The former area is SmartSynch’s specialty. The company’s meters are capable of hooking up to networks via any of several wireless standards like WiFi, CDMA or ZigBee to divulge the data they collect.

Fundings may be flooding in right now, but SmartSynch is no newbie. Founded in 2000, the company has taken $80 million to date. It has also deployed about 125,000 meters, and grew 125 percent last year. Meters have turned out to be a particularly bright area to innovate in, because they’re advantageous to several constituencies.

The advantage comes in giving more information to both customers and utilities. Instead of seeing electricity usage as one big block on a bill received once a month, customers can see usage on an almost moment-to-moment basis. Following the old adage “knowledge is power”, that information gives both parties the ability to plan out usage based on when electricity is most available, saving utilities power and both sides money.

SmartSynch’s chief technology officer, Henry Jones, says his firm’s communication technology, which is installed in meters made by Elster, General Electric and Itron, has brought in about $15 billion in additional revenues for utilities so far. That’s good news for the company, because it’s the utilities that buy and install the meters. Their customers include some rather large ones, including Socal Edison, Florida Power & Light, and Canada’s Hydro One.

Other firms, including Silver Spring Networks, have fairly similar technology and strategies. However, Jones claims that’s not a problem: Each firm has its own approach to communicating data, he says, and each approach is useful for different applications, leaving a wide market chunk for each competitor.

But that’s not much use to any new startups who might want to muscle in on the action. After all, several of these firms have years of lead time. So what are the next big opportunities? Jones thinks the next step is getting meters to report not just back to the utility, but also directly into the home or business they’re installed in; he says SmartSynch is preparing to release several meters that do just that.

Hooking into the gas and water meters is also a good opportunity, along with integrating the data from all three major utility streams. On a more granular level, there’s space for companies that measure and control electricity usage by specific devices, like air conditioners and lighting. And of course, there’s opportunity to be had not just in communication and control, but in helping to decipher all the information that’s being generated.

For the present moment, the wave of smart grid startups shows no sign of slackening. Several more announcements that I’m aware of are on their way in coming weeks, and a few in front usually means a pack behind.

The $25 million SmartSynch received was the Jackson, Miss., company’s fourth funding. Credit Suisse, a new investor, led the round, along with another newcomer, Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance (perhaps they’ll tack “venture partners” onto that name at some point). A heap of previous investors also came along for the ride: Batelle Ventures, Beacon Group, Endeavor Capital Management, GulfSouth Capital, Battelle’s affiliate Innovation Valley Partners, Kinetic Ventures, OPG Ventures and Siemens Venture Capital.

Featured companies: American Aerogel, Clinicient, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, Genome Diagnostics, RadPharm, RainDance Technologies, Vivacta

UPDATED: Expanded items on Vitae, RadPharm, Vivacta and Genome Diagnostics. Intelligent Bio-Systems is now covered in a standalone item here.

Vitae Pharma takes in $15M for blood pressure, diabetes drugs — Vitae Pharmaceuticals, a Fort Washington, Pa., biotech focused on new drugs for hypertension and metabolic disorders, raised $15 million in a fourth funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required). Boehringer Ingelheim, which struck a major partnership with Vitae in mid-October (PDF link), provided the funding.

That partnership calls for the two companies to co-develop Vitae drug candidates that inhibit a protein called 11beta-HSD1, an enzyme that helps regulate the hormone cortisol. The drugs may be useful in treating diabetes, obesity and hypertension. B-I agreed to pay Vitae $36.5 million in cash, research funding and an at-the-time unspecified equity investment, as well as up to $300 million in potential milestone payments.

Vitae’s other major drug program involves compounds that inhibit the protein renin, which regulates blood pressure and vascular function. Renin inhibitors, which could be useful in treating hypertension, have been a white whale of sorts for the drug industry over the past 30 years (see, for instance, this somewhat technical discussion of the history here).

UK’s Vivacta draws in $12M for medical diagnostics — Vivacta, a U.K. medical-diagnostic company formerly known as PanOpSys, raised $12 million in a second funding round. Investors included AGF Private Equity, HBM BioVentures, Spark Ventures and Viking.

Vivacta is developing a fast, “point of care” diagnostic system intended to deliver laboratory-quality test readings from drawn blood in doctors’ offices or at a hospital bedside. The technology is based on a “piezoelectric” film coated with antibodies to particular blood proteins. Piezoelectric devices produce current when compressed, so theoretically this approach should allow a direct measurement of blood proteins by generating current proportional to the density of antibodies that capture any particular blood protein.

RadPharm gets $10M for medical-image reviews — RadPharm, a Princeton, N.J., provider of medical-image review services, raised $10 million in a second funding round. Investors include Siemens Venture Capital, Ampersand Ventures, Adams Street Partners and Tang Capital Management.

RadPharm essentially provides outsourced analysis of medical images ranging from CAT scans to X-rays for clinical trials, whose outcomes can hinge on the way those images are read and analyzed. Trials of cancer drugs, for instance, frequently look at whether tumors shrink, stabilize or grow, and determining that requires someone to look at actual patient X-rays or other images and decide what they actually show. RadPharm’s service provides “centralized, independent, blinded interpretation” of such scans.

Genome Diagnostics, cancer-test maker, aims for $1.6M — Genome Diagnostics, a Pasadena, Calif., developer of cancer diagnostic tests, has raised several hundred thousand dollars toward an anticipated $1.6 million first funding round, VentureWire reports. B.C. Capital of Israel and several individual investors provided the funds.

According to VentureWire, the company aims to produce a diagnostic test for prostate cancer based upon gene variations detected by sequencing a patient’s entire genome. That sounds unlikely on several levels, the first of which is that “whole-genome sequencing” — VentureWire’s description of what the company is doing — is still incredibly expensive, with an estimated cost of $100,000 or more.

It seems far more likely that the company will do a rough-and-ready genome scan that samples only several hundred thousand of the genome’s three billion DNA “letters” that are known to vary between individuals — at least, that is, unless Genome Diagnostics is betting that the cost of whole-genome sequencing will drop to the fabled $1,000 or so by the time it gets its product to market. And maybe that’s exactly what the company is doing, although that would mean that its initial testing costs are going to be extraordinarily high.

It’s also far from clear exactly what sort of prognostic information the company hopes to obtain from a genome scan of either type, since most genetic-association studies can only show increases or decreases in the probability of disease, and with such a margin of error that it’s difficult to see how that information could possibly serve a diagnostic purpose. I’ll try to circle back to the company in order to get a better idea of what they’re up to for a future post.

OTHER HEADLINES OF NOTE:

• Clinicient receives $5M for healthcare revenue-management software (release)
• Genome sequencer Intelligent Bio-Systems raises funding (VW)
• American Aerogel raises $3.2M for biopharma gels (VW)
• Frazier Healthcare Ventures raises $600M life-sciences fund (Seattle P-I)
• RainDance Technologies appoints Christopher McNary as CEO (release)

U-Systems, a San Jose, Calif., maker of ultrasound systems for breast imaging, raised $16.5 million in a fifth round of funding. The company, founded in 1997, markets its systems for the early detection of breast cancer, particularly in women with dense breast tissue.

Although based in Silicon Valley, the company has strong ties to Taiwan. Siemens Venture Capital led the round, joined by Sycamore Ventures, MDS Capital, Radius Ventures, Kinetic Capital, United Investments of Taiwan, President International Development of Taiwan, iD Innovation (founded by Acer chairman Stan Shih), China Investment & Development of Taiwan, and TSC Bioventures of — you guessed it — Taiwan.