Michael Kanellos

Idealab: Google’s Farm Team for Green Technology Today at 11:59 AM

The connections between Idealab and Google continue to grow.
RechargeIT, the part of Google.org that concentrates on clean transporation technologies, announced today that it has invested in Aptera, a company making a three-wheeled car. That marks the second time that Google (or one of its charitable subsidiaries) has invested in a company touted by the incubator.
Google [...]

Eric Wesoff

California Cleantech Open Event at Google, Pt. 1 July 22, 2008 at 9:20 AM

The California Clean Tech Open presented an event at Google last night – with a panel discussing “Renewable Technologies of the Future” and a showcase of Renewable Energy Alumni and current contestants in the CCTO competition.
The location was not the Google planetary headquarters but another campus in Mountain View, Calif., which I’m pretty sure was [...]

Michael Kanellos

Green Building Gets Its Boost in California July 18, 2008 at 8:43 AM

Buildings are the George Harrison of green tech. Usually, it’s the first two guys–solar and biofuels–that come to mind when the green tech gets debated. Buildings are typically in the “oh yeah, that too” category.
But entrepreneurs and VCs are gravitating toward the topic and for good reason. Buildings account for nearly half of greenhouse gas [...]

Eric Wesoff

Intersolar Hallway Conversations and Rumors, Pt. 2 July 16, 2008 at 2:46 PM

Continuing where we left off yesterday, here’s more of the chatter coming out of this year’s Intersolar conference in San Francisco:

From the really big valuation department…Optisolar allegedly received a $132 million funding round last quarter at an $850 million pre-money valuation according to several anonymous VCs. Optisolar manufactures PV modules and builds large-scale solar farms [...]

Eric Wesoff

News and Rumors From the Halls of Intersolar, Pt. 1 July 15, 2008 at 10:40 AM

Greentech Media hosted an enormously successful all-day seminar on Concentrated Solar Power Markets and Technologies yesterday at Intersolar in San Francisco. Daniel Englander reported on it here. Over 300 people attended the seminar.
But as informative and compelling as the speakers were at the podium and on the panels – sometimes the more interesting conversations occur [...]

Michael Kanellos

The Secret Ingredient for a Successful Greentech IPO July 2, 2008 at 3:43 PM

What does a company really need to pull off a successful IPO in the greentech market?
Time.
Think of it. SunPower, the solar panel maker that had one of the first successful IPOs in the green market in 2005, was founded by Dick Swanson in 1985. First Solar, the sizzling maker of cadmium telluride solar panels, went [...]