Cleantech Investing: Tesla Motors, Dow doubles-down on Millennium, ethanol updates, and John Doerr loves clean water

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Tesla Motors, Dow doubles-down on Millennium, ethanol updates, and John Doerr loves clean water

Tesla Motors announced a $40mm Series C (thanks to Tyler for the heads up yesterday), co-led by Vantage Point and Elon Musk (founder of Paypal, CEO of SpaceX), and including several luminary angels as well as DFJ and JP Morgan Bay Area Equity Fund. The company is still being quiet about their car design (a brief Google Image search only turned up a picture of Nikola Tesla's 1931 electric car), but I've spoken with someone who's taken an early test drive and he reports it is "very, very cool."

Millennium Cell announced that Dow Chemical has completed an option to purchase $1.25mm of the company's Series B-1 preferred stock, as their joint development efforts hit their first milestone. Millennium Cell is publicly traded, and their products offer both hydrogen-based fuel cells and hydrogen on demand to provide a "hydrogen battery".

Neal Dikeman over at CleantechBlog has a very useful update on current happenings in capital fundings for ethanol projects. He also provides his own thoughts and predictions on the subject, well worth checking out.

According to BW's Deal Flow blog, John Doerr of KPCB is very interested in finding a clean water tech investment. Amen! We've asked the question before, Are VCs about to get serious about water tech? It's definitely been getting a lot of attention since the Basin Water IPO...

0 Comments:

What is "cleantech"?

The term "cleantech" refers to technologies that:

- Use energy, water and other raw materials more efficiently and productively,

- Deliver equal or superior performance,

- Improve customer profitability, through cost reduction and/or increased revenues, and

- Create less waste or toxicity

...compared to incumbent technologies

blog stats

Unique visitors to date

Locations of visitors to this page

@Ventures is not responsible for any of the content of this website, nor do they necessarily agree with the viewpoints expressed within

Legal Notices

ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS

This site ("Cleantech Investing") and its contents are provided to you, subject to the following Terms of Service ("TOS"), which may be updated by us from time to time without notice to you. You can review the most current version of the TOS at any time at http://cleantechvc.blogspot.com. If you do not agree to these TOS, please do not use Cleantech Investing. We reserve the right, at our discretion, to update or revise these TOS. Please check the Terms periodically for changes. Your continued use of this site following the posting of any changes to the TOS constitutes acceptance of those changes.

THIRD PARTY SITES

Cleantech Investing provides links to other Websites on the Internet. Cleantech Investing does not assume any responsibility for such content and makes no express or implied warranty about the accuracy, copyright compliance, legality, merchantability, or any other aspect of the content of such sites. Cleantech Investing is not responsible or liable for any advertising, products, or other materials on or available from such Websites or resources. The inclusion of such a link does not imply endorsement of the Websites by Cleantech Investing or any association with their operators.

CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE

You acknowledge and agree that all content and materials available on Cleantech Investing are protected by copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents, trade secrets, or other proprietary rights and laws. All original content on Cleantech Investing is licensed under a Creative Commons license and is subject to the terms and conditions of the license at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ ("Creative Commons License"). By submitting content to Cleantech Investing, you agree that it is subject to the same terms and conditions as Cleantech Investing's Creative Commons License.

OPINIONS EXPRESSLY THOSE OF AUTHORS

The opinions expressed in Cleantech Investing state only those opinions of the author of such post (as is clearly designated). While the authors of Cleantech Investing are current or former venture investors with various venture capital partnerships, the opinions they express in Cleantech Investing do not necessarily reflect the opinions of such venture capital partnerships and should not be taken as such.

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES

YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT:

a. YOUR USE OF CLEANTECH INVESTING IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. CLEANTECH INVESTING IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. CLEANTECH INVESTING EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

b. CLEANTECH INVESTING MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT (i) IT WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, (ii) IT WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE, (iii) THE INFORMATION THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF CLEANTECH INVESTING WILL BE ACCURATE OR RELIABLE, (iv) THE QUALITY OF ANY PRODUCTS, SERVICES, INFORMATION, OR OTHER MATERIAL OBTAINED BY YOU THROUGH CLEANTECH INVESTING WILL MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS, AND (v) ANY ERRORS IN THE SOFTWARE WILL BE CORRECTED.

c. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU THROUGH OR FROM CLEANTECH INVESTING SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY NOT EXPRESSLY STATED IN THE TOS.

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT CLEANTECH INVESTING SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, GOODWILL, USE, DATA OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES (EVEN IF CLEANTECH INVESTING HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES), RESULTING FROM: (i) THE USE OR THE INABILITY TO USE CLEANTECH INVESTING; (ii) THE COST OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS AND SERVICES RESULTING FROM ANY GOODS, DATA, INFORMATION OR SERVICES OBTAINED OR MESSAGES RECEIVED OR TRANSACTIONS ENTERED INTO THROUGH OR FROM CLEANTECH INVESTING; (iii) UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO OR ALTERATION OF YOUR TRANSMISSIONS OR DATA; (iv) STATEMENTS OR CONDUCT OF ANY THIRD PARTY ON CLEANTECH INVESTING; OR (v) ANY OTHER MATTER RELATING TO CLEANTECH INVESTING.

EXCLUSIONS AND LIMITATIONS

SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF CERTAIN WARRANTIES OR THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. ACCORDINGLY, SOME OF THE ABOVE LIMITATIONS OF SECTIONS 4 AND 5 MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU BUT ONLY TO THE EXTENT REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW.

SPECIAL ADMONITION REGARDING FINANCIAL INFORMATION

You understand that Cleantech Investing is furnished for informational purposes only, and that no mention of a particular company or security in Cleantech Investing constitutes a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold that or any other security, or that any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction or investment strategy is suitable for any specific person. You further understand that Cleantech Investing will not advise you personally concerning the nature, potential, value or suitability of any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction, investment strategy or other matter. To the extent any of the information contained on Cleantech Investing may be deemed to be investment advice, such information is impersonal and not tailored to the investment needs of any specific person.

Cleantech Investing may contain opinions from time to time with regard to securities and any or all contributors to Cleantech Investing, or their affiliates, may hold positions in securities. The contents of Cleantech Investing are written by current or former venture investors. It is their business to buy and sell securities. Cleantech Investing will use reasonable efforts to disclose when an author writes about a company in which that author has an interest, or about a competitor thereof. Cleantech Investing's principal authors are current or former venture investors with their respective partnerships, so you should assume that the authors have an interest in all companies in their partnerships' publicly disclosed portfolios, which can be viewed at such partnerships' websites. Cleantech Investing will make no efforts to update past posts to reflect current interests.

CLEANTECH INVESTING IS PROVIDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND NO CONTENT INCLUDED IN CLEANTECH INVESTING IS INTENDED FOR TRADING OR INVESTING PURPOSES. CLEANTECH INVESTING AND ITS LICENSORS SHALL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE OR LIABLE FOR THE ACCURACY, USEFULNESS OR AVAILABILITY OF ANY INFORMATION TRANSMITTED OR MADE AVAILABLE VIA CLEANTECH INVESTING, AND SHALL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE OR LIABLE FOR ANY TRADING OR INVESTMENT DECISIONS MADE BASED ON SUCH INFORMATION.

INDEMNITY

You agree to indemnify and hold Cleantech Investing, and its affiliates, officers or other partners, and employees, harmless from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys' fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of content you submit, post, transmit or make available through Cleantech Investing, your use of Cleantech Investing, your connection to Cleantech Investing, your violation of the TOS, or your violation of any rights of another.

With thanks to David Hornik's VentureBlog for the above legal language .

Copyright 2007, Robert Day. Not for re-printing or re-use without permission.