Lora Kolodny began reporting on business, technology and entertainment in 2002. She has worked as greentech writer and editor at TechCrunch, and as a staff reporter for Inc. magazine and The Hollywood Reporter. Her New York Times blog, “The Prize,” covered the winners, losers, innovation and deal-making of business competitions.
At its worldwide headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. today Google installed 71 electric vehicle charging stations made by Coulomb Technologies. They will be used to power up employee-owned hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs) as well as the company’s GFleet vehicles.
GFleet is Google’s car sharing program for employees. So far, it includes Chevrolet Volts and Nissan LEAFs. → Read More
Shell spinoff Avantium raised another EUR 30 million, or about $43.9 million (USD) the company reported Thursday. Avantium produces “chemical building blocks” that industrial plastics, textile and fuel makers need to churn out green products that are as affordable and work as well as petroleum-based equivalents.
Avantium uses a catalytic process to convert carbohydrates into furanics, which are bio-materials that can be made from sugar or non-food sources.
The company plans to use its new funds, in part, to create a 100 percent plant-based, 100 percent recyclable polyester. It also aims to complete and begin operating a production plant in Geleen, the Netherlands. The plant was expected to be up and running already… → Read More
Thursday marked World Oceans Day, a United Nations effort to “raise global awareness of the challenges faced by the international community in connection with the oceans.”
Getting in the spirit, Google Earth and about a dozen research labs paired their data, talents and technology to create highres maps of seafloor terrain. Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory led the charge contributing its Global Multi-Resolution Topography (GMRT) Synthesis and some 20 years worth of data from 500 ship cruises.
The interactive topo maps they created portray an underwater area bigger than North America. Such visualizations help scientists understand natural and man-made disasters including: tsunami events and runups, earthquakes… → Read More
A research firm focused on clean energy and green innovation, the Cleantech Group, launched its i3 Platform today— and it’s something like a paid Crunchbase, with a dash of Alltop and Gartner, for green tech ventures.
The product became privately available to some of Cleantech Group’s clients in late May. Now, some of the i3 Platform is available for free public use via Research.cleantech.com. Free users get basic search and brief— as in one sentence— company profiles.
Paid subscribers to i3, however, get access to detailed company profiles, complete search results, market mapping tools, regular Industry Insights and quarterly investment reports from the Cleantech Group. The product is meant to help the firm’s clients see how green tech players are connecting… → Read More
VantagePoint Capital Partners, a global cleantech fund focused on energy and efficiency, today revealed that former Best Buy executive Kal Patel is joining the firm as partner. Patel is expected to grow VPCP’s “European presence,” and lead its international “strategic partnerships” according to a press statement from the fund.
At Best Buy, Patel worked as executive vice president and president of the comapny’s Asia regional business. He lead a major acquisition of a Chinese company, worked on building Best Buy’s business in transportation, mobility, health and home energy management, and helped run the Best Buy Capital Alpha Fund… → Read More
Liquid Robotics raised a $22 million, series d investment, led by VantagePoint Capital Partners, the company revealed today. Based in Hawaii and California, the company invented and makes wave-powered, marine drones or vehicles that are remote controlled by satellite, and capable of roaming the seas unmanned to gather environmental or defense-related data.
Liquid Robotics also announced the appointment of a new chief executive officer today, Bill Vass, previously the president and chief of operations at Sun Microsystems Federal. → Read More
Greenvity, a startup that makes “system on a chip” (SOC) technology for use in smart grid-connected equipment or energy saving consumer electronics, has raised more than $7 million in a series A round led by DFJ VinaCapital. The round was joined by undisclosed angels and one chip manufacturer, reports managing director of the Ho Chi Minh City-based venture fund, Phuc Tan.
Greenvity’s chips could be used in everything from energy meters, home appliances, electric vehicles and solar inverters to mobile phones and routers, Tan confirmed.
In an e-mail interview with TechCrunch, the investor also explained… → Read More
Adults in the U.S. could use a little more education on economics and physics, it seems. We’re not drawing the connection between power consumed by our electronics and the cost of our electric bills.
A new survey from the Consumer Electronics Association found thirty six percent of adults in the U.S. are “not concerned” with the amount of power consumed by their gadgets, gear and appliances. Sixty percent of U.S. adults, by contrast, are concerned about the cost of their electric bill.
CEA also estimated that just 10.2 million U.S. households are enrolled in electricity management programs, now. That’s a mere 8.6 percent of 119 million households that have access to these things… src= → Read More
Cleantech companies— especially in solar— love to talk about how they’re breaking records. They issue press releases left and right about the most efficient this, that and the other. Such claims fizzle if they haven’t been verified by a third-party lab. They can also feel like greenwash, or Cola War style brand standoffs.
Broken records we love to hear about, though, are like these from cleantech ventures Lighting Science Group and Flisom (in Switzerland)… → Read More
A New York City startup that provides small businesses with a social media dashboard, Postling, is rolling out three new features this week. They are meant to help small business owners see who their company’s most influential advocates are on social media; and get actionable ideas from brands that are doing a good job of using social media already.
Using Klout’s reputation monitoring, Postling will now present users with information about their latest follower(s) on Twitter. If anyone highly influential — from Lady Gaga to Ron Conway — follows your company, Postling founder and chief executive David Lifson reasons, you may want to write a personalized thank you to them, and follow them back immediately— even if you don’t usually take the time to interact with every follower your business gains… → Read More
Another app to help electric vehicle (EV) drivers find a place to power up? Yep. This one, Recargo, was made by the founder of Dictionary.com, Brian Kariger, and launched stealthily in July last 2010. So far, the app has attracted hundreds of users, Kariger told TechCrunch. The company added new features and is pushing for wider adoption today, with a version 1.5 release.
New features on Recargo include: Yelp-like, user contributed reviews and photos of charging stations that EV drivers encounter and use, and news content about clean transportation syndicated in-app from Recargo’s partner, PlugInCars.com. → Read More
On Wednesday, SolarCity added $158 million to the pool of funds that it uses to finance, design, develop and install commercial or residential solar power projects in the U.S. The latest fund came through a partnership with U.S. Bancorp (a subsidiary of U.S. Bank) and gives SolarCity more than $1 billion in financing capacity… → Read More
Shares in Solazyme, the makers of algae biofuels and algae-based oils and chemicals used in health and beauty products, began trading on Nasdaq under the symbol SZYM.O on Friday. The business set an initial public offering price at $18, but its stock opened at $20 and traded between $19.60 and $22.00 throughout the day, with 10.98 million shares sold, raising about $197.6 million for the company.
Solazyme’s S-1 filing on March 11, 2011 confirmed its intention to go public, officially. Speculation about an IPO for the company preceded that by many months in the cleantech industry, however.
Algae-derived marine and jet fuels made by Solazyme have been used and tested by the U.S. Navy. Prior to going public the company… → Read More
The chief executive officers of two very different clean tech startups, Brammo and EcoMotors, discussed the relative merits and limitations of clean vehicle technology, at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York on Wednesday. Oregon-based Brammo designs and manufactures all-electric motorcycles and the battery technology and software that powers them, while Michigan-based EcoMotors designs and makes more efficient combustion engines.
EcoMotors’ CEO Don Runkle roundly criticized clean tech advocates who say all-electric vehicles (EVs) are “zero emissions.” Causing a bit of a stir in the conference hall, Runkle, the former VP of engineering at GM, went on to claim that EcoMotors’ engine technology enables car companies to produce diesel-powered vehicles that have a lower, overall carbon footprint than any electric automobile available today.
Given that electric vehicles don’t produce diesel exhaust, and don’t use fossil fuels, how can this be…? → Read More
Harvest Power, a company that makes energy and fertilizer products from organic waste, added $6 million to its series B, $51.7 million round, with Rabobank’s SAM Private Equity group, which focuses on sustainability investing and is based in Zurich, Switzerland, joined the company’s other backers: Generation Investment Management, DAG Ventures, Keating Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Waste Management (NYSE: WM), Munich Venture Partners, and TriplePoint Capital.
As Harvest Power CEO Paul Sellew told TechCrunch in March, the company will put the capital into building two, large biomass renewable energy projects… → Read More
In the early hours of Hackathon day two, bleary-eyed hax0rz roamed the conference hall, checking out each others’ apps. TCTV caught up with a few who were still standing to see how they fared after twenty-four hours, heads down in the code and design… (video) → Read More
Talent scouting at the 2011 Hackathon in Manhattan today, TCTV caught up with three alumni hax0rz and one n00b, who gave us a sneak peek of their apps and ideas. They included: a couple of dating sites, one with a hyper local twist, a mobile web application that lets you see nearby job opportunities using data from your Foursquare network and… → Read More
Toshiba — the diversified tech company best known for its consumer electronics, lighting and HVAC systems — is coming after the smart grid market in Europe and the U.S. with the acquisition of a Swiss smart grid tech firm, Landis+Gyr. Toshiba announced a commitment to acquire Landis+Gyr for $2.3 billion today.
The company makes power distribution, metering and smart home software and systems, which will supplement Toshiba’s utility-related offerings and give Toshiba reach into new markets in Europe, the U.S., China, India and Brazil, where Landis+Gyr has already gained some traction, according to a company statement (link, above).
While Toshiba sells hardware used by utilities — in substations, on poles and transmission lines, for example — this is their first major move to grab a piece of the energy management business on the metering and consumer side. → Read More
WaterSmart Software, a green tech startup that’s frequently compared to the energy management startup OPower has closed a $900,000 round of seed financing led by Menlo Incubator and joined by Sand Hill Angels, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Physic Ventures.
The company’s co-founder Peter Yolles explained the concept of the technology in an interview with TechCrunch ahead of the funding announcement:
“…Most residential consumers don’t understand how much water they use and where it goes in the home. We’re trying to create a way for them to ask and answer questions like: how do I compare to my neighbors, in terms of water use? What are the two or three best things I can do in or around my own home to save water? What costs me the most money?”
Through new official partnerships with Facebook, Twitter, and NY-based startups Foursquare and Tumblr, New York aims to become America’s next, top digital city.
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the city’s first, chief digital officer, Rachel Sterne, presented their Road Map for the Digital City, today.
Before formulating the plan, Sterne led a comprehensive 90-day review of the city’s current use of web, social media and mobile technology, and surveyed thousands of public and private sector organizations, and residential users in New York… → Read More
San Francisco, CA
