GreenFuel and HydroGen announce raises

Two cleantech companies announced raises recently:

• GreenFuel Technologies, which uses algae and industrial emissions to create biofuels, announced a $2.4M bridge financing, as the company works to complete a Series B round. The company also recently brought on a chief executive. New investors provided at least some of the funding; the company had previously been backed by Access Industries and private investors.
  

• HydroGen, which produces phosphoric acid fuel cell products, announced that they have gone public via the acquisition of a shell company, in the process raising $13.5M from a group of investors including at least one institutional investor. The firm is now trading publicly as OTCBB: CSTC (at least before a likely ticker change). This kind of process for becoming publicly-traded appears to be increasingly popular, but becoming a publicly-traded company so early has its pros and cons.

Finally, while I pointed to the SF Chronicle article on nanotech-based solar startups yesterday, I should have also linked to this educational side-bar. Both articles probably should have mentioned Miasole as well (Nanosys, Nanosolar and Konarka are mentioned). Miasole is a local company that is also involved in nano-scale deposition for PV cell manufacturing, and which recently took in a large round of financing.