ReliOn's $20mm follow-on, and various followups

ReliOn, the PEM fuel cell manufacturer that was spun out from Avista back in 2003, announced a $20mm follow-on round from their existing investors (from a November 2004 $25mm round). Those investors include Oak Investment Partners and Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, Wall Street Technology Partners of New York, Chrysalix Energy of Vancouver, British Columbia, Seattle's Buerk Dale Victor, and Avista Corp. The total venture capital invested in the company to date is $57.5mm.

Some other follow-ups on previous items:

• We've discussed the California Clean Tech Open before... Now comes the Kleiner Perkins greentech contest, a $100k annual prize. Not sure why it's a separate effort, aside from the obvious "cleantech" vs "greentech" branding issues, but it's certainly good to see.

• We briefly mentioned the MIT Energy Conference a few weeks back. Here's a good recap, and we also hear that some video feeds will be available on the site soon.