Clean Sweep 72

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

Deals
Waste treatment group New Earth Solutions secured £5m from Ludgate Environmental Fund as part of an ongoing £15m fundraising round.
The Dorset-based group provides waste services, including a proprietary temperature-controlled composting process, for local authorities across southern and central England. Its New Earth Energy subsidiary, launched last year, offers gasification and pyrolosis waste-to-energy systems.

Scottish wind turbine manufacturer Proven Energy landed an extra £1.5m from Low Carbon Accelerator. Along with a conversion of an existing £600,000 loan into equity, the new round gives LCA an 81% stake in the company.
Ayrshire-based Proven is a leading producer of small-scale (3-15kW) turbines. The new funding aims to position the company to take advantage of the UK introduction of feed-in tariffs.

Green chemicals developer Plaxica raised £1m from existing investor Imperial Innovations, and government-backed Carbon Trust Investments and NESTA.
A spin-out from Imperial College London, Plaxica is developing a process to produce biopolymers suitable for packaging and industrial applications from sustainable feedstocks such as sugarcane.

Irish ocean power developer Wavebob raised a Euro3m interim funding package. Around half of that came as equity from BVP Investments and private backers, while Sustainable Energy Ireland and Enterprise Ireland provided grants.
Founded in 1999, Wavebob is developing a wave energy convertor invented by founder William Dick. The Kildare-based firm announced it was seeking a Euro25m round earlier this year.

Israeli PV tech group SolarEdge announced a $23m round from corporate investor GE Energy Financial Services, plus US VCs Opus Capital and Walden International, Israeli funds Genesis Partners and Vertex Venture Capital, and Singapore-based JP Capital Asia. SolarEdge provides embedded power harvesting and monitoring systems to improve the efficiency of solar panels.
GE Energy also announced investments in US smart grid firms Tendril (following its $30m third round in June) and Gridnet.

Canadian concentrating PV player Morgan Solar raised a $4.7m first round from a syndicate led by Turnstone Capital Management. Investors include the venture arms of Spanish wind developer Iberdrola, and US plastics manufacturer Nypro.
The investment helps Morgan commercialise its Sun Simba HCPV panel, which uses the firm's proprietary light-guide solar optic technology. The tech promises a low-cost way to concentrate light up to 14,000 suns, at up to 30% efficiency.


Fund news
Italian environmental VC Ambienta has closed its first fund at Euro217.5m. Institutional investors include Macquarie and Doughty Hanson.
The fund will invest across the environmental sector, from renewable energy to waste and water management, in the Euro10-30m range.

George Soros has pledged to invest $1bn in clean energy technology. No details as yet, but see Bloomberg for more.