CalCEF Angel Fund (34)
AOL Energy names CalCEF's Dan Adler and Paul Fox in Top Five Clean Energy VC.
Written by Paul FoxDan Adler and Paul Fox were named alongside John Doerr of KPCB, Alan Salzman of Vantage Point, Cathy Zoi of Silverlake and Nat Goldhaber and Paul Straub of Claremont Creek Ventures. Source: AOL Energy.
Lumetric Unveils New Identity and Silicon Valley Demo Center
Written by Administrator
FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lumetric Inc., the leading provider of controllable, intelligent large area lighting (ILAL), today announced a corporate identity makeover to further enhance its presence in the high efficiency, high output lighting market. Formerly known as HID Labs, Lumetric also welcomed two industry veterans to the executive management team and introduced
the Silicon Valley Demo Center located at the Lumetric headquarters in Fremont, California. Sean Gaydos brings more than 17 years of lighting industry experience to his new role as vice president of Sales for Lumetric. He recently held the post of vice president of Sales at Hubbell, as well as sales leadership roles with Cooper Lighting and Acuity. Mr. Gaydos will leverage his considerable lighting expertise to build, direct and manage Lumetric’s sales force and distribution channels to drive the company’s overall growth in the large area lighting (LAL) market.
Erik Birkerts of Evergreen Growth Advisors has been retained as a senior advisor to guide strategic direction and to leverage strategic partnerships to drive sell-through of Lumetric’s SmartPOD. Mr. Birkerts brings valuable perspectives from more than two decades of management experience in high growth companies. As former chief operating officer of Orion Energy Systems, Mr. Birkerts played a key role in Orion’s rapid sales expansion and successful IPO.
“With the many strategic changes at Lumetric, including the added domain expertise of Sean Gaydos and Erik Birkerts, we are in a significantly better position to serve the growing lighting market well into the future,” said Cheryl Diuguid, CEO of Lumetric. “With our new corporate identity and direction, Lumetric has refined its focus on flexible, intuitive controllable lighting systems that not only represent a cost-effective, energy saving alternative to current large area lighting technology, but also measurably improve overall lighting quality.”
Lumetric’s new identity rollout includes the official opening of its Silicon Valley Demo Center, which hosts a complete SmartPOD network. The SmartPOD delivers the greatest light output and highest CRI in the industry with its unique combination of high efficiency HID lamps and embedded, sensor-enabled, controls. As a Smart Device for the Smart Grid, the SmartPOD is demand response enabled. In addition to providing more accurate color rendition, the SmartPOD offers a comfortable and productive user experience, while saving industrial and commercial customers up to 80 percent in energy costs.
Lumetric’s new corporate headquarters are located at 41350 Christy Street in Fremont, California.
About Lumetric:
Lumetric is a leading technology innovator introducing the world’s most advanced, high-brightness, intelligent large area lighting (ILAL) technology. The Lumetric plug-and-play, high-performance SmartPODTM system offers customers intuitive, embedded controls, delivering up to 80% energy savings. The SmartPOD is already approaching 2 million hours of operation in industrial facilities, warehouses and retail spaces. Formerly known as HID Labs, Lumetric is VC-funded and based in Fremont, California. For more information, please visit www.lumetric.com.
Contacts
Lumetric Inc.
Cheryl Duiguid, 510-668-0600 ext.185
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Media:
Asa Fenton, 415-977-1930
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CalCEF Angel Fund Closes $11 Million Renewable Energy Starter Fund
Written by AdministratorCalCEF is an independent non-profit which was created in 2004 as a result of the bankruptcy proceeding of Pacific Gas & Energy (PG&E), which is an investors and industry partner. Angel investment often is committed in increments of $500,000 or less to early stage companies that show promise, so that the founding team can build prototypes, go after new clients and demonstrate proof of concept.
Alphabet Energy is among the fund’s portfolio companies. The startup was spun out of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where last week a team of scientists announced a breakthrough yeast that could revolutionize how ethanol is made from biomass.
In their young years still, renewable energy technologies are relying on sex appeal and future growth to nab the vast pools of money they need. Investors are seeing little return on their dollars and this is likely to remain the case until clean energy is cost competitive with conventional fuel sources without the need for subsidies. Right now the best way to cash out is to take a company public, even when they have dubious finances, or a very long profit horizon.
CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund Closes $11M Investment Vehicle
Written by AdministratorBackers include the PCG Clean Energy & Technology Fund.
Founded in 2008 by the California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF), the vehicle invests in early-stage clean energy companies operating in the solar, energy efficiency, transportation and lighting sectors.
In addition to providing capital of up to $500,000 per round, the fund provides ongoing strategic guidance, including market and regulatory intelligence, to its diverse investment portfolio, currently comprised of four companies.
Recent additions to its portfolio include Alphabet Energy, a startup commercializing a low-cost waste heat recovery technology developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and REEL Solar, which has developed a low-cost cadmium telluride (CdTE) electro-deposition process for manufacturing solar cells.
The fund was set up as an independent entity in 2008 by the California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF), a $30m non-profit venture capital fund formed in 2004 to accelerate the development of clean technologies.
Its launch was intended to address a perceived funding gap between initial founder investment and venture capital for early-stage clean energy companies. Investors include the PCG fund of funds and CalCEF itself.
‘Taking the shape of a hybrid fund, our approach is a cross between a direct angel model and venture firm where visibility, collaboration and resource sharing are spread among all partners,’ said Susan Preston, general partner of the CalCEF Angel Fund.
‘This successful close in the midst of a difficult fundraising climate is a testament to the promise of this fund model.’
It is focused on early-stage, capital-efficient clean energy technologies, and provides strategic guidance including market and regulatory intelligence to the four start-ups in its investment portfolio, along with up to $500,000 in capital per round.
The fund’s portfolio companies include Alphabet Energy, a startup commercialising a low-cost waste heat recovery technology developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and REEL Solar, which has developed a low-cost electro-deposition process for manufacturing solar cells.
Clean energy angel fund closes $11 million
Written by AdministratorFounded in 2008, the CalCEF Angel Fund invests in early-stage clean energy companies spanning the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors.
“Transparency and participation from our limited partners is the cornerstone of the CalCEF Angel Fund’s investment strategy. Taking the shape of a hybrid fund, our approach is a cross between a direct angel model and venture firm where visibility, collaboration and resource sharing are spread among all partners,” said Susan Preston, general partner of the San Francisco-based fund.
The CalCEF Angel Fund was launched by the California Clean Energy Fund. Recent additions to its portfolio include Alphabet Energy, a startup commercializing a low-cost waste heat recovery technology developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and REEL Solar, which has developed a low-cost cadmium telluride electro-deposition process for manufacturing solar cells.
The fund's portfolio also includes Fremont-based Lumetric Inc.
The CalCEF Angel Fund is part of a preferred stock financing round in REEL Solar co-led by San Francisco-based CMEA Capital and Vancouver, B.C.-based Pangaea Ventures.
On the GreenBeat: GE partners with Better Place, smart grid market poised to hit $9.6 billion by 2015
Written by Administrator
GE and electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure startup Better Place announced a partnership this morning. The collaboration will build compatibility between the products of the two companies, finance battery purchases abroad and push for greater EV adoption. The companies will help finance the purchase of 10,000 EV batteries in Israel and Denmark and will make GE’s WattStation charging stations (pictured) compatible with Better Place’s network of EV infrastructure. [Update: Check out our in-depth look at how the partnership will work.]
Private equity firm Quantum Energy Partners has formed Quantum Utility Generation, a company to be capitalized with $1 billion of equity that will purchase and develop traditional and alternative energy projects in North America. The company will be called Quantum Utility Generation, and already has $500 million committed by Quantum, with the other half to come from investors and strategic partners.
The CalCEF Angel Fund announced an $11 million close today. The fund aims to invest in early-stage cleantech companies, providing capital up to $500,000 per round as well as strategic guidance to young startups. Its portfolio includes Reel Solar and Alphabet Energy. Look for more on this story soon on GreenBeat.
The U.S. smart grid market is poised to grow more than 70 percent to be worth $9.6 billion by 2015, according to a report from GTM Research. The expansion will be fueled in part by federal grants and increased market competition and consolidation. The report predicts that “the distinction between smart grid and traditional distribution grids [will] dissolve” as utilities and users move towards intelligent hardware and software.
Recurrent Energy announced yesterday it will be purchased by Sharp for $305 million cash. The company will retain its name and CEO, and will act as a subsidiary to Sharp. With this purchase, Sharp, a top solar panel manufacturer, adds to its portfolio Recurrent’s 2 gigawatt-pipeline of distributed-scale solar projects. CNET calls the purchase evidence of “ongoing consolidation in the solar industry,” while Green Tech Media notes that solar developers with big projects are a hot commodity and speculates Axio Power may be next for an acquisition.
Photovoltaic solar panel giant First Solar is gearing its efforts towards utility-scale projects in U.S. market. In an in-depth interview with Reuters, First Solar CEO Robert Gillette explains the company’s strategy – ramp up major projects in the U.S. and look to Australia as the German market slows thanks to the winding-down of solar incentives there.
Companies: Alphabet Energy, Better Place, Calcef, First Solar, GE, GTM Research, Recurrent Energy, Reel Solar, Sharp
Alphabet Energy: From the Lab to the Factory
Written by Administrator
Startup Alphabet Energy, which is developing materials and devices that convert waste heat into usable electricity, is one of those companies that sounds really cool, but you don’t actually know what they’re specifically making. Well, the company told me this week that by 2012 they will deliver products to customers, and throughout 2011 will be moving from the lab into the factory. However, I still don’t know the actual products that will be manufactured.
Alphabet Energy CEO Matt Scullin explained to me in an interview that the company is staying quiet on specifics for competitive reasons, but explained the potential markets to me as industries that have exhaust that is above 250 degrees C, which includes manufacturing, vehicle engines, and power generation. The high-level explanation is that the company’s materials or devices (they are developing products for both) will be used in various processes, like metal refining, and cement and glass production, as well as in engines, like diesel engines for aircrafts and ships, to convert waste heat into usable electricity.
Defense applications seem to be a solid fit with that explanation and Alphabet Energy was awarded a $320,000 Small Business Innovation Research contract from the U.S. Army, Air Force, and the Department of Energy.
Throughout 2011, Alphabet Energy will be conducting pilots with customers (unnamed), says Scullin, and has hired new executive Sylvain Muckenhirn to head up process engineering and manufacturing. Scullin maintains that previous cost predictions for its products — 50 times cheaper than competitors and $1 per watt — are still on track.
To be sure, Alphabet Energy is still an early stage company. They have 8 employees, and have raised $1 million in seed funding from venture investors Claremont Creek Ventures and the CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund. So they’re still pre-Series A, and Scullin says later this year the company will probably start looking into raising another round of funding.
Hopefully, Alphabet Energy won’t underestimate the cost and time it takes to start commercially producing products. Startups constantly do this. But Scullin says that the type of manufacturing that they’ll be doing can piggy-back on existing facilities, so perhaps it will be less expensive to scale.
Thermoelectric Watch: Phononic Raises $10M
Written by Administrator
Thermoelectric devices — semiconductors that turn heat into electricity, or vice versa — could find a lot of applications in the real world, if they can get the technology right. A startup called Phononic Devices is giving it a shot, and this week, announced it has landed a $10 million Series B round from venture capital investors Venrock and Oak Investment Partners.
Phononic is devising high-efficiency systems for both thermoelectric cooling — using electricity to remove heat — and thermoelectric generation that turns waste heat into useful power. It raised $2 million in a previous funding round and landed a $3 million ARPA-E grant in November.
Phononic is aiming at what it describes as a $125 million market for thermoelectric devices, whether that’s in generation or cooling applications. The company is aiming first at cooling applications, an area where solid-state devices have been serving a role for some years.
Turning waste heat into power, on the other hand, is a much broader — but much more diffuse — market. Up to half the energy generated in the U.S. is lost to waste heat, according to ARPA-E Director (and UC Berkeley professor) Arun Majumdar, making it a big target for recycling.
But much of that waste heat is hard to capture. Big industrial waste heat systems generally require pretty high temperatures to do things like turn water into steam to drive turbines. Finding a cheap and reliable thermoelectric method to capture the lower-temperature waste heat could open the door to far more applications.
Several startups are working on it, including Applied Methodologies, which was seeking funding last year to work on thermoelectric generators to capture waste heat from servers and other IT equipment. Another is Alphabet Energy, which landed $1.48 million in research contracts from the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army last week, on top of a seed round of $1 million from Claremont Creek Ventures and the CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund last year. Alphabet hopes to have commercial products in the field by 2012 delivering power for $1 per watt, about 50 times lower than the current generation of thermoelectric materials.
Much of the work underway on thermoelectrics is concentrated on more efficient materials. Tucson, Ariz.-based Tempronics landed $2.7 million from investors including Nth Power last year for its technology to improve thermoelectric efficiencies of different materials, and MC10 landed an ARPA-E grant in 2009 to work on silicon nanotubes for thermoelectric systems.