Clean Sweep 4

A round-up of recent news in clean technology and cleantech investment.

Deals
Tidal stream turbine developer Marine Current Turbines has secured £7.5m in new funding. New investors were led by ethically-focused Triodos Bank, via its Triodos Investment Management subsidiary, in its first investment in marine renewable energy. AM2 Funds (managed by City Capital Asset Management) also invested, alongside existing investors EDF Energy, BankInvest and Guernsey Electricity.
Bristol-based MCT recently announced that their first major installation, in Northern Ireland's Stangford Lough, will commence in late August. The SeaGen system will be the world's largest ever tidal current device, with 1.2MW capacity - four times MCT's SeaFlow turbine in Devon, which has been operating since 2003.
SeaGen will operate for up to five years, and is intended to act as a prototype for commercial applications. Danish offshore contractor A2SEA is leading the installation.

Waste-to-energy group Inetec has secured £2.5m follow-on investment from a syndicate led by Oxford Capital Partners. The round also included existing investor Finance Wales and other new investors. Inetec, based in South Wales, owns proprietary technology to convert waste from the food industry into stable biomass fuel. The funding goes towards the group's first waste-to-renewable-energy CHP plant on the Humber. The plant will take up to 180,000 tonnes of waste and generate 24MW electricity per year.

The Alternative Energy Company has raised £200,000 expansion capital from the Yorkshire and Humber Equity Fund, managed by YFM Group. The firm, based in Ripon, North Yorkshire, supplies of wind turbines, solar panels and power inverters for domestic use.

Swiss rechargeable battery developer ReVolt Technology has secured Euro10m follow-on funding from existing investors Northzone Ventures, SINTEF Group, Sofinnova Partners, TVM Capital, Verdane Capital and Viking Venture. The money goes towards tech development for ReVolt's zinc-air batteries and the installation of pilot production lines.


Company news
Nviro Cleantech plans to raise £12m by floating on AIM in July. The IPO will give the London-based tech developer a market value of around £20m.
Nviro identifies promising cleantech at university spin-out or start-up level, and brings them to commercialisation. Key technologies in their current portfolio include a clean coal process being developed with a Chinese partner; a wood fibre reclamation system; and air purification and laser ignition technologies.
Nviro raised £3.7m in private placing in December 2006. The IPO is brokered by Fairfax, with Grant Thornton as nominated advisor.

Fuel-cell materials company Bac2 is opening a test laboratory and new offices at the Millbrook Technology Campus in Southampton. The company raised £500,000 seedcorn from London Seed Capital and London Business Angel Network in May 2006. Bac2 say its electrically conductive polymer, ElectroPhen, is ideally suited to the bi-polar plates and end plates that link individual fuel cells into fuel cell stacks.