Bridgelux, a manufacturer of LED lighting technology, has raised almost $21 million in its latest round of funding, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission today.

The company specializes in making commercial lighting using light-emitting diodes (LEDs). That’s the same technology that powers back-lighting for computer screens and televisions, but not traditional light sources like lamps and light fixtures. That’s because the technology is pretty expensive, though much more energy-efficient than traditional bulbs.

Bridgelux earlier released a LED-powered light source that cost $20, down from the typical cost of around $50 for LED light sources. That’s still quite a bit higher than traditional incandescent light bulbs, though, which cost anywhere from $2 to $10 per bulb.

To quell some concerns about how stable the technology is, Bridgelux decided to offer a five-year warranty on all of its light fixtures late last year, following a trend started by companies like SolarBridge and SolFocus to pick up some new customers that weren’t quite convinced the technology was stable enough for every day consumers.

It looks like the most recent round was led by existing investors Vantage Point Venture Partners and venture capital firm DCM, according to the filing. Bridgelux has 138 employees and is based in Livermore, Calif. The company closed a funding round worth around $34 million around the same time last year. The company is also backed by Chrysalix Energy and El Dorado ventures.

Tags: LED Lighting

Companies: BridgeLux

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Bridgelux, a manufacturer of LED lighting technology, has raised almost $21 million in its latest round of funding, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission today.

The company specializes in making commercial lighting using light-emitting diodes (LEDs). That’s the same technology that powers back-lighting for computer screens and televisions, but not traditional light sources like lamps and light fixtures. That’s because the technology is pretty expensive, though much more energy-efficient than traditional bulbs.

Bridgelux earlier released a LED-powered light source that cost $20, down from the typical cost of around $50 for LED light sources. That’s still quite a bit higher than traditional incandescent light bulbs, though, which cost anywhere from $2 to $10 per bulb.

To quell some concerns about how stable the technology is, Bridgelux decided to offer a five-year warranty on all of its light fixtures late last year, following a trend started by companies like SolarBridge and SolFocus to pick up some new customers that weren’t quite convinced the technology was stable enough for every day consumers.

It looks like the most recent round was led by existing investors Vantage Point Venture Partners and venture capital firm DCM, according to the filing. Bridgelux has 138 employees and is based in Livermore, Calif. The company closed a funding round worth around $34 million around the same time last year. The company is also backed by Chrysalix Energy and El Dorado ventures.

Tags: LED Lighting

Companies: BridgeLux

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Here’s our roundup of the week’s tech business news (shorter than usual since there’s not exactly a flood of news between Christmas and New Year’s). First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:

Apple increases Q1 2011 iPhone shipments, includes Verizon-ready CDMA iPhone — Apple expects to ship 1 to 2 million more iPhones in the first quarter of 2011 than it originally planned, including those ready for Verizon’s cellular network, according to Taiwan-based component suppliers.

6 social media business trends to watch out for in 2011 — Social media is a field that changes almost constantly. NetProspex’s Gary Halliwell writes that 2011 will be just as turbulent, but he’s put together six trends that should help entrepreneurs make the most of this marketing opportunity.

Meet the HTC Thunderbolt, Verizon’s first LTE 4G phone — It looks like we won’t have to wait until next week’s Consumer Electronics Show to check out Verizon’s first 4G phone. HTC’s Thunderbolt Android smartphone was outed this week.

Y Combinator-backed Humble Bundle sells $1.8M worth of indie games — The second Humble Indie Bundle, a batch of games that players can purchase for whatever amount they want to pay, has raked in a not-quite-so-humble $1.82 million after being on sale for a little more than a week — and its host might be looking at a nice $90,000 tip for its efforts.

And here are four more posts we think are important, thought-provoking, fun, or all of the above:

VentureBeat’s top 10 VC startup fundings in 2010 — It was the best of times, it was the worst of times — at least for Silicon Valley startups in 2010.

Gain Fitness wants to start your gym resolution early — VentureBeat’s Owen Thomas has been on a serious fitness kick, and he says he has a new problem: His current set of fitness apps, geared around watching calories and tracking workouts, don’t seem ready to take him to the next level. Enter Gain Fitness.

Winklevoss twins on Facebook lawsuit: It’s not about the money — Recent coverage of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss’ dispute with Facebook sheds some light on why the company hasn’t managed to make the lawsuit go away. It looks like the dispute is less about money and more about credit.

Tesla stock drops 16 percent, analysts pile on worries — As VentureBeat suggested, the entry of new shares onto the market Monday has caused Tesla’s stock to drop.

Tags: HTC Thunderbolt, Humble Indie Bundle, iPhone

Companies: Apple, Facebook, Gain Fitness, HTC, Humble Bundle, NetProspex, Tesla Motors, Verizon

People: Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Solar financing startup Sungevity has raised $15 million in a third round of financing to put more solar panels on rooftops by leasing or selling the systems to homeowners.

The company has now raised a total of $25 million, and Sungevity CEO Danny Kennedy said the company will use the capital to expand. Using a hot solar model, Sungevity offers solar leases that allow homeowners to put panels on their roofs for little to no money down. They then pay a monthly lease plus the cost of electricity generated, a combination that Sungevity says can beat traditional electricity rates. The company currently offers the leases in California, Arizona and Colorado, and will expand using the new round of cash.

“We’re looking to go to many states next year and basically get a national foot print. We’re really looking at the northeast,” said Kennedy, speaking from Washington, D.C., where he said he was doing market research.

Solar seems to be attracting a nice level of interest from venture capitalists lately, endangered subsidies or not. Thin-film cadmium telluride solar panel manufacturer Abound Solar yesterday closed on $510 million in funding to expand its manufacturing capacity. According to Greentech Media, Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers have invested in Clean Energy Finance, a software-as-a-service firm that makes a tool for solar installers that speeds up and streamlines bidding, rebates and sales proposals.

Sungevity is a smaller potato compared to its larger and buzzier counterparts, the Elon Musk-backed SolarCity and the Sequoia-backed SunRun (both of which are said to be potential IPOs in 2011). While both SunRun and Sungevity say there’s enough room in the solar leasing market to accommodate the competition, Kennedy pointed out that his company has been able to show good growth with less capital than what’s been raised by others in the field, in part because of its centralized, Internet-based model that operates largely out of the company’s base in Oakland, Calif. The company grew its market share in top solar market California from 0.4 percent to 2.9 percent last year, and says its kilowatts sold have gone up 10 times since last year for a total of 4.7 megawatts.

The company’s pitch is that it’s the Netflix of home solar — that is, it’s all about tapping into convenience through the Internet. Sungevity uses an Internet-based model that pulls in satellite images from sites like Bing to assess homes and give residents quotes within 24 hours of their request. The company is planning to roll out more consumer-side software and streamline the paperwork process using the web; customers can currently electronically sign their leases online. Another differentiator: Sungevity offers 10-year plans for power purchase agreements and leases, which is significantly shorter than the standard 20- or 25-year plans in the solar industry.

It’s playing in a field that is set to grow from about 80,000 houses with solar to 2.4 percent of the U.S. housing market by 2020, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, though Kennedy told me at GreenBeat 2010 that he thinks those numbers are low. In a statement, the company cited a new report by IDC Energy Insights that said the rate of North American solar installations is expected to double in 2011, and residential solar leasing companies are expected to increase their market share to over 50%.

Investors in this round include Greener Capital, Firelake Capital and Brightpath Capital Partners.

Tags: rooftop solar, Solar, solar financing, solar leases

Companies: Bing, Brightpath Capital Partners, Firelake Capital, Greener Capital, SolarCity, Sungevity, Sunrun

People: Danny Kennedy

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Apple taught the tech world that going vertical — where a company owns many of the critical technology ingredients that it uses in its products — can result in big payoffs. Products like the iPhone and iPad are made with Apple software, chips, and hardware.

Because Apple succeeded so well with that vertical business model, other companies are following suit. Add to the fact that big tech companies are sitting on a lot of cash and you’ll find that the result is a merger and acquisition boom, said Frank Quattrone (pictured, left), head of merger advice firm Qatalyst Partners.

This is the phenomenon we wrote about on the triumph of vertical models over the horizontal model. In horizontal businesses, each company carves out a certain role. With the PC, Microsoft made the operating system. Intel made the chips. And IBM shipped the computer.

Now, Apple designs chips that it uses in mobile phones that run its own operating system. Microsoft makes its Xbox 360 hardware and supervises the design of its chips. Intel has broadened beyond chips with its purchase of software firms Wind River Systems and McAfee. And Oracle is designing hardware and chips thanks to its purchase of Sun Microsystems. Acquisitions across industries within the tech sector are now far more likely than ever before.

“In every category, you used to have one or two buyers,” he said. “Now that companies are buying across industries, there are many more potential buyers.”

That means the potential for merger mania is gathering steam. Quattrone talked about this trend in a conversation with venture capitalist Bill Gurley (pictured, right) of Benchmark Capital at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco today.

Quattrone is known for his past jobs at Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, and Credit Suisse First Boston where he played a big role as a financier of Silicon Valley. He helped Cisco, Netscape and Amazon.com go public. But then he got caught in a scandal that took him out of the investment-banking business. He was prosecuted for interfering with a federal investigation into how shares were allocated for IPOs. That led to a long legal struggle. The case was eventually dropped. Quattrone’s name was cleared, but his reputation was tarnished.

Quattrone said that, after his ordeal , that he did serious soul-searching. He thought about doing a private equity fund, shifting the green technology, or philanthropy. But he decided he had the most fun giving advice to tech companies considering merger and acquisition deals. That’s whats gives him a window into today’s M&A environment.

Tags: Mergers and Acquisitions, vertical integration

Companies: Apple, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Qatalyst Group, Sun Microsysetms

People: Bill Gurley, Frank Quattrone

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

OnGreen, a social media platform for green entrepreneurs looking for investors, today announced a $1.4 million first round of financing by China Southern Hong Kong Investment, a cleantech investment fund in Shanghai.

The company launched its OnGreen.com web site, in July, which has since been used by nearly 300 entrepreneurs in more than 35 countries. Startup hopefuls use the site to upload a business plan, and investors can contact entrepreneurs directly if they’re interested in investing in the idea.

The company calls itself the “LinkedIn” of cleantech investing. “We don’t just connect people with people, we connect ideas with money,” said CEO Nikhil Jain.

It’s an interesting concept, particularly at this point in time. Cleantech investing has been on the decline, and early-stage cleantech funding has taken the biggest hit. The site says that, according to a survey of users, about half of the startups who used the site were contacted by angel or venture capital investors as a result. About 40 percent of users are outside of the U.S.

[Image via Flickr/lumaxart]

Companies: China Southern Hong Kong Investment, OnGreen

People: Nikhil Jain

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Yingli Green Energy (YGE) this morning said it now sees Q3 and full year gross margin in the 31%-32% range, above its previous estimate of 28%-30%. The company issued the revised forecast in a news release covering highlights of the company’s meeting with analysts today in China.
Other noteworthy items in [...]

Article courtesy of BARRONS.com: Tech Trader Daily

Variety reports that Al Pacino has been cast as a hedge fund manager in a “financial thriller” tentatively titled Arbitrage, opposite Eva Green and Susan Sarandon. The only plot details that have been revealed are that Pacino is a “magnate” who gets “in over his head” and is “desperate to complete the sale of his trading empire to a major bank before his fraud is revealed. But an unexpected, bloody error forces him to turn to the most unlikely corner for help.” Naturally, we need to know more.

Specifically about the “bloody error” and the “unlikely help.” Unfortunately shooting doesn’t start ’til next spring so it’s going to be a good long while ’til the gaps are closed, meaning our only recourse it to make an educated guess based on our inner knowledge of the industry. As it’s unclear whether or not Variety is being literal when it says ‘bloody’ or simply getting their British on, we’ll have to dig deep for possible real-life scenarios for either instance. In the event we’re talking actual blood:

* Pacino’s character goes long AB negative and short O negative. Tagline: “You NEVER short the universal donor, asshole.” (Unlikely help: a blood drive volunteer with loose morals.)

* The script is loosely based on a quant fund located in Greenwich, CT. After lunch one day, the founder decides to do some impromptu and very amateur manscaping on himself, using only a pair of dull scissors. He cuts a bit too close for comfort and losing a dangerous amount of blood, is forced to rip the cape off the vintage Captain America doll on his desk, which he hasn’t so much as taken out of the box (it loses its value if removed from its original packaging) and use it as a tourniquet until the ambulance arrives.

In the event we’re talking British bloody:

* Pacino’s character is a hedge fund manager who loves sweets and has been known to drive all the way from his office in Chicago to an ice cream shop in Milwaukee just for one of his favorite shakes. He sold the bank on the deal based on his ultra-successful track record, but just before the deal is about to close, he discovers the firm has actually been down for the last three years after having some Twinkie residue squeegeed from his monitors.

* The magnate is based on one of the most well-known, successful managers in the world who is also exceedingly good looking. Walking down the hallway after working late one night he passes a piece of installation art– a shark suspended in formaldehyde.  He’s always wondered, what would happen if I just stuck my finger in the tank, in the same way people think, what would happen if I just stuck my finger in this pencil sharpener?  He unlatches the top and sticks it in, not knowing the artist, a deeply disturbed man who’d been waiting for someone to do just that, had stuck a motor in the shark’s mouth set to clamp down on any appendages that might make their way inside.  He shrieks in agony until the only person left in the building, the guy who replaces the snacks in the pantry finds him. His finger still stuck, writhing in pain, the manager yells “get me out of here!”  The snacks guy, never imagining in his wildest dreams that he’d have the upper hand over the boss, considers it and says, “I’ll pull you out. But you gotta let me get fancy with the treats.  No more of this healthy crap.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the manager counters.  “You know exactly what I talking about,” Snacks says. “The Soy Chips? Gone. I get free reign. Make Your Own S’Mores sets, the works.  I want to spread my wings. Or, you can just keep your finger there. I’m good either way.”  They come to an agreement.

* The magnate is based on one of the most well-known, successful managers in the world who has an ass you can bounce a quarter off.  His trainer cancels their session one night and he’s forced to circuit train on his own in the company gym.  He benches, he lifts, he wales on the Nautilis, all with the strength and agility of a Navy Seal and then boom! Out of nowhere, he’s hit with a debilitating Charlie Horse. Laying on the ground, unable to move he screams for help.  The only person left in the building is a recently hired IR chick who finds him there and carries him to his car.

* The magnate is based on one of the most well-known, successful managers in the world who has a cock from the Gods. One of his passion projects is a line of all fleece apparel (boxers, 3-piece suits, mini-skirts, the works), which he plans to present to the staff the next day.  Working on a sample jumpsuit the 11th hour, he gets his lapels caught in the power sewing machine. He yelps for help until the one person left in the building, a P&L analyst, finds and untangles him. Normally the two would never have so much as uttered a word to each other, and though he’s grateful and promises the young man he won’t forget this, the manager warns, “if you tell anyone about this I’ll fucking kill you.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Angel investors and venture capital firms are finding  teaming up to find the best deals as early as possible, new data released today shows, with investors paying particular attention to startup companies active in the IT and business technology space

The statistics released by Dow Jones VentureSource showed that during the first three-quarters of 2010, angel and VC co-sponsored deals put $282 million into 68 separate deals.

That’s a significant uptick year-over-year, when the same period in 2009 saw only 59 co-investment deals garnering a total of $236 million.

Technology or online networking startups are seeing the bulk of this investment, said Dow Jones, as the white-hot environment for web-based social media continues to draw both investors’ interest and their infusions of money.

“As venture capitalists scout younger companies, especially in the consumer and Internet spaces, we are seeing them tap into and co-invest with angel groups,” said Jessica Canning, global research director for Dow Jones VentureSource.

Over the last quarter, investors been particularly keen on business and financial services, and put more than $1 billion dollars into software companies alone.

Renewable energy also has caught the eye of many angel-VC partnerships, as “renewable energy deals continue to drive investment in the energy industry,” said Dow Jones.

The recent stats showed that median size deal has grown slightly, weighing in at around $5 million since the beginning of 2009, as VCs and angels pick and choose where to put what cash where they think they are most likely to turn startups into powerhouses.

Still, angel investors continue to account for a relatively small part of over all investment across the market: Dow Jones’ statistics—which they’ve been compiling since 2007–said total venture capital investments accounted for only $5.5 billion in the third quarter.

Those numbers could likely skyrocket in the coming few quarters, however, with has many investors panting on the sidelines for many currently privately-held companies like Facebook and Twitter to take their businesses public.

Tags: angel investors, deal, Social Media, social networking, Social networks, Venture Capital

Companies: Dow jones, Facebook, Twitter

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Home energy management company Tendril announced it has acquired GroundedPower, a software company that focuses on behavioral-based engagement of consumers.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The company also announced it has raised $23 million in a fourth round of financing. Investors include TIAA-CREF, Good Energies, VantagePoint Venture Partners, RRE Ventures and GE.

“The backdrop of all of the last two to three years in smart grid has been about plumbing,” said CEO Adrian Tuck in an interview with VentureBeat. Tendril specializes in such plumbing — the company makes a platform that connects utilities and customers through its associated home energy management software and hardware. “We’re finally — belatedly, in my view — getting into consumer view about how to get consumers to play into these systems.”

That’s where Massachusetts-based GroundedPower comes in. GroundedPower competes with companies like OPower, which helps utilities meet efficiency goals by managing consumer engagement. Like OPower, it uses behavioral science to engage and motivate customers to reduce costs. GroundedPower has rolled out its iCES product across New York state and Cape Cod, where it got pilot participants to achieve 9.3 percent energy savings.

The software, which users can access online or through a smartphone, starts with two simple questions to get a sense of what motivates the customer to save energy — a pointed counter to what Tuck says feels like “thousands of questions” posed by Microsoft’s Hohm. The software gradually builds a conversation with users, asking questions over time, offering insight about energy usage, and eventually suggesting ways to save money and offering products and services customers can tap into, like a smart thermostat or an air conditioning fix.

“The smart grid industry has been laboring under the idea that consumers have been kept in the dark about their consumption, which is true. What’s not true is that the immediate response is to bombard consumers with data,” Tuck said. ”Not all consumers want to interact with these systems every day. Finding non-disruptive ways to get consumers to interact with this technology is going to be key.”

Tendril will offer a new product that integrates GroundedPower’s capabilities in the first quarter of next year.

Getting consumers to turn green is certainly a matter of human psychology — some companies have tried using the carrot; others, the stick. Some cities, for example, impose a tax on plastic bags. Washington, D.C., has found that policy effective in cutting down plastic bag use, although the Wall Street Journal argues that it’s guilt, not the fee, that elicits results.

In the case of commercial users, utilities simply dangle financial incentives for buildings to cut energy use during peak load times. It’s a hot area called demand response that Comverge and EnerNOC have been especially effective in.

GroundedPower’s team consists of engineers with backgrounds from NYU and Microsoft labs. Its founders, interestingly, were behind a top smoking-cessation website. Smoking cessation, weight loss and energy efficiency are all areas in which “consumers are keen to see reductions but find it very difficult in practice to know where to begin and how to make change persistent,” the company said in a statement.

“We talk about insight, choice, and control. Ultimately that should end up with consumers controlling things,” Tuck said. “Consumers really just want to be told every now and then, ‘Here’s some things you can do.’”

Tags: consumer engagement, energy efficiency, home energy management, Smart Grid

Companies: GE, Good Energies, GroundedPower, RRE Ventures, Tendril, TIAA CREF, VantagePoint Venture Partners

People: Adrian Tuck

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals