The Carlyle Group embraces green energy

More evidence of the trend of generalist investors getting into cleantech investing: Founder and Managing Director David Rubenstein told attendees at a private equity conference in Germany that the firm intends "to be much more active in the wind, power, solar energy, biomass and geothermal areas." The article describing his speech also mentions that Carlyle will be raising a private equity fund to specifically focus on renewable energy infrastructure. Rubenstein's statements probably relate primarily to the firm's later stage investment activities, but there's reason to believe this approach will extend into the firm's early-stage investments as well.

In any case, as later stage financial investors get more active in cleantech, it improves the possibilities for M&A exits and for project financing for venture investors' portfolio companies. The cleantech "ecosystem" continues to fill out nicely...

Various news items

Busy week, so excuse the laundry list of news items of interest:

• Seattle Biofuels' Martin Tobias and others have formed the Northwest Energy Angel Group to fund regional clean energy startups. Two articles cover the group here and here. Will this signal the beginning of a trend of other regional cleantech-focused angel groups? The role of angel investors in cleantech is a topic we've touched on before.

• Amen, Bob.

• Following up on the recent stories about Kleiner devoting more capital to cleantech investments, here's an interesting interview.
  

• Here's a good overview of alternative energy investment opportunities, courtesy of Joel Makower. On that topic, the Cleantech Capital Group's Cleantech Index now is officially trading -- put ticker ^CTIUS into your stock tracker...

• Matt Marshall spotlights ethanol...

• Finally, a couple of interesting columns on solar. First, a good catchup on the industry by pundit Peter Fusaro. Secondly, a report that the looming silicon shortage is driving M&A in the industry. Fast-moving trends are rapidly changing the shape of the industry.
  

Renewable Ventures and MicroGreen Polymers

• Renewable Ventures, which is going to be providing financing to offset the upfront costs of installing solar systems, has announced that they (and their institutional investors) have $100M of funds to put into such financings. See this Red Herring story for more information on the company's efforts; the company appears to be an emerging competitor to SunEdison, which earlier raised $60M for third-party solar financing, as well as GE Commercial Finance, which is also providing financing options. Renewable Ventures claims to have financed 1MW of solar developments through 2005.
  

• MicroGreen Polymers, which has developed thermoformed plastics with added durability and heat insulation, has raised $2.4M in their first significant raise of capital. Two unnamed private financing groups led the raise, which also included WRF Capital and local angel investors. As this article describes, one of the most promising early applications for the plastic would be eliminating the need to "double-cup" when you get your morning caffeine fix...
  

Notes from the week

• Interesting article in the FT on cleantech. Important point (highlighted by the Cleantech Venture Network's Nick Parker) made in the article is that the quality of entrepreneurs across cleantech segments is on the rise, often serial entrepreneurs. Having increasingly strong management teams to back is clearly one of the several encouraging factors in the cleantech market right now for venture investors.

• On the general topic of fuel cells, while the investors quoted in this piece come largely from the public markets, it's still interesting to see this investors' take on timing the hydrogen economy.

• The development of trading markets for the emissions reductions created by energy efficiency projects, the renewable energy credits ("green tags") created by green energy projects, and carbon credits overall, will all have important implications for the adoption of clean energy technologies by the private sector, even in the absence of regulatory change. Thus, the subject of this very informative post in Cleantechblog...

• We always knew that pond scum will somehow save the planet... One has to wonder how this discovery would be implemented commercially. In a system similar to GreenFuel's? Large enclosed wading pools planted behind hydrogen vehicle refueling stations? If it's photosynthesis driven, it's going to require a lot of surface area and access to sunlight...

• We've mentioned aerogels before -- here's an interesting overview and critique.

• Adoption of renewables in the U.S. is not only growing, but the rate of adoption is also growing, in a very good sign for investors.

• Reading this, just wanted to acknowledge that the last time the company was mentioned we weren't passing along such flattery (scroll down to "amusing reads"). A fun juxtaposition. And while we're (kind of) on political topics, it was great to see that the job cuts at NREL were reversed...
  

Cleantech investor news

• Following up on the well-documented interest by Vinod Khosla in cleantech investing, comes word that Khosla Ventures has officially been launched. Khosla's already spearheaded several compelling clean technology investments, so it will be interesting to see how this focused effort comes along.

• Norsk Hydro's corporate venture arm is setting up a new ~$60M fund, targeting energy technology investments. You can find a very good overview of their efforts and investments here.
  

ORYXE raises Series C to $27M

In a round that has been open for some time (or at least was re-opened), ORYXE announced today that their Series C has been increased to $27M with the addition of funding from Paladin Capital Group. ORYXE's fuel additive technology helps users of diesel fuel meet increasingly stringent emissions standards, and is already being offered in Texas.

Existing investors include Ridgewood Capital, Odyssey Venture Partners, and DSM Venturing.

Perpetuum raises $3.8M Series A

Perpetuum, a UK-based company that is developing MEMS-based micro-generators that turn kinetic energy into power, announced a $3.8M Series A. UK VC Quester put in $2.4M of the round, and Top Technology and existing investor Sulis also participated in the round. Here's an article that has background on the concept.