Impact Engine is a newly launched venture accelerator in Chicago designed to attract both environmentally and socially-minded businesses that want to – well, you know — make an impact on today’s world. The belief is that you don’t have to be a non-profit business to make this happen, but that it’s possible to create self-sustaining businesses that are working to improve the human… → Read More
Greenstart, the San Francisco-based startup accelerator dedicated to the cleantech industry – and more importantly, to making it “sexy” enough to attract investors – announced its second cadre of of companies this week. This time around, the organization is tightening its focus to concentrate solely on the intersection of I.T. and cleantech, specifically in areas of smart grid, the built… → Read More
A Colorado cleantech venture, Luca Technologies, filed an S-1 today revealing its intention to go public, and raise up to $125 million (though that number could vary with the receptivity of the market by the time they actually go public).
The company stimulates microbes with a “proprietary formulation of nutrients,” in already-drilled natural gas wells, which enables the wells to produce more… → Read More
SoloPower— a manufacturer of flexible, thin film solar cells and modules— has raised another $43.7 million in an equity round this month, according to a new SEC filing. Investors in the round include: Greentech Capital in New York, and Thomas Weisel Partners in San Francisco. Earlier investors in the company include: Hudson Clean Energy Partners, Crosslink Capital, Convexa, and Firsthand.
In… → Read More
According to an official company blog post today, Google is increasing its investment into California’s Alta Wind Energy Center (AWEC) by $102 million, bringing its total investment in the renewable energy facility to $157 million.
The AWEC is being developed by Terra-Gen Power, primarily. The first development within the massive facility is the Alta-Oak Creek Mojave Project. Google’s latest… → Read More
A San Francisco-based renewable energy fund, CleanPath Ventures, announced plans today to invest $800 million over a period of about five years into the development and construction of large-scale, solar photovoltaic projects. The company’s chief executive and co-founder, Mike Cheney spoke at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum in New York, today revealing a goal to help bring more than 1,000… → Read More
A Los Angeles startup that’s trying to become a cleantech mashup of AngelList, LinkedIn and Intellectual Ventures, OnGreen, today announced it has hired ex-Hulu, ex-Myspace vice president Mark Richards as chief technology officer.
According to OnGreen’s founder and chief executive officer, Nikhil Jain, while the site is currently running in English by the end of 2011 it will also launch in… → Read More
Air travel promises to become cleaner, if industry actions ahead of the huge, annual Paris Airshow are any indication.
Virgin America— a company that’s been reporting on its own greenhouse gas emissions since 2009— ordered $1.4 billion worth of new, super fuel-efficient engines from CFM International the companies announced on Wednesday. The move should help keep energy costs down, and reduce… → Read More
EcoFactor, an energy efficiency startup based in Redwood City, Calif. was named a winner at the Utility Technology Challenge today in Boston. The other two winners were Ideal Power Converters and Power Tagging, according to a press release from the event.
EcoFactor’s flagship software as a service (SaaS) helps electricity consumers and utilities to diagnose and curb energy waste related to… → Read More
On Tuesday, ClearEdge Power— a cleantech startup that makes 5-kilowatt stationary fuel cells— announced that it won a $2.8 million grant from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to gets its technology out to the market more quickly.
Targeted customers for ClearEdge Power include the owners and operators of hotels, groceries, schools, medical centers and fast food restaurants. → Read More
Golden, Colorado-based Proterra, Inc.— the makers of electric commercial vehicles, systems and charging stations for them— raised $30 million, the company announced today. The investment was led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and joined by GM Ventures, Mitsui & Co., Vision Ridge Partners and 88 Green Ventures.
According to a press statement today, Proterra will use its new… → Read More
Maybe it’s just a biofuels thing this year, but it seems like the feds are giving cleantech grant money to companies and institutions that are based anywhere but in the nation’s capital of venture capital.
The U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced six recipients of $36 million in total grant funding via the Department of Energy’s Biomass Program on Friday. That non-dilutive funding went… → Read More
JouleX– an Atlanta tech startup promising a way to cut energy consumption and reduce costs at large data centers by about half– closed a $17 million round of financing, the company announced today. Investors included: Sigma Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners and Intel Capital, along with earlier investors Target Partners and TechOperators.
The U.S. EPA has not updated national statistics… → Read More
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… → 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… → 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… → 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. → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → 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… → Read More
A New York research firm that turns massive amounts of data into streamlined information, CUBRC (pronounced “coo-brick”) invested $1.2 million in seed finance, and established a strategic partnership with GridGlo — a smart grid technology startup from Delray Beach, Florida, the companies revealed today.
GridGlo sells software and services that help utilities see how and why their customers… → Read More
America’s first pipeline-fed, retail hydrogen fueling station opened in Torrance, California, within Los Angeles county on Tuesday. The station will provide hydrogen for fuel cell and hybrid vehicles in the area. It was built through a joint effort by Toyota, Air Products and Shell alternative energies, with funding from the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) and the U.S. → Read More
The U.S. solar industry is banding together to fend off an onslaught of global competition, and to lower the cost of manufacturing solar technology domestically. To make it happen, the newly formed U.S. Photovoltaic Manufacturing Consortium (PVMC) secured a $57.5 million federal grant from the Department of Energy Sunshot Initiative, along with financial commitments totaling $400 million from… → Read More
Cobalt Technologies, a cleantech startup in Mountain View that develops and makes biobutanol, closed a $20 million series D funding round, the company revealed today. The investment arm of Parsons & Whittemore (the Whittemore Collection) led the round, joined by all of Cobalt’s earlier venture backers: Pinnacle Ventures, Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund, VantagePoint Capital Partners, Life… → Read More
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