Arch Rock and Ice Energy

• Arch Rock, which is developing hardware and software for wireless sensor systems, announced a $10mm insider round this week. NEA led the round, which also included existing investors Shasta Ventures and Intel Capital. This follows on a $5mm round announced a little over a year ago.

• Ice Energy, which uses ice-based air conditioners to shift energy usage from peak periods to non-peak periods (freeze the ice at night, use it to cool a building during the day) raised a $25mm round of financing. The round had been in the works for a while, and ended up being led by Goldman Sachs, with participation by Good Energies and existing investors Second Avenue Partners and Sail Venture Partners.
  

• VentureWire reported that AdaptivEnergy, which is developing piezoelectric devices for applications like thermal management and fuel cells, signed a development agreement with the CIA's In-Q-Tel -- and is seeking a $5-10mm venture round. The company has raised $5mm to date.

• VentureWire also reported this week that, according to a regulatory filing, Nth Power's fourth fund has now reached at least $132mm, toward a target of $200mm.
  

• It's not really a venture investment, but it's interesting to note Google.org gave a $200k grant to CalCars.org.
  

Lots of conference updates to discuss:

• It's perhaps the most-blogged cleantech conference ever. The first Austin Clean Energy Venture Summit was oversubscribed, and has gotten rave reviews. Tech Confidential wrote a series of blog posts (see here, here, here and here). There were quite a few good articles by Martin LaMonica and Michael Kanellos on News.com. A nice little column can also be found here. But I thought the best review of sorts was a text message I got on my cell phone from a colleague on-site: Grt conf down here. Woolsey said govt move twd fmly car hydrogen fuel cells "stupidest thing govt has done in energy policy ever." That was the complete message, beginning to end... Anyway, sounds like many kudos to Joel Serface and his team on a solid event.
  

• Also getting a lot of coverage was the latest Cleantech Venture Forum in Frankfurt, thanks in part to Bill Joy's declaration that "A global response to climate change will spur a bigger business revolution than the internet." A lot more detail on his remarks can be found here, and Wired's blog has their perspective as well. Speaking of the Cleantech Group, they've taken a very interesting step in backing a joint venture to launch a cleantech business park in China.
  

• Last week in Pasadena, California, the Clean Innovation Conference 2007 took place as well -- sounds like it was yet another strong, oversubscribed cleantech event.

Sectoral updates:

• Lots of talk recently about the solar market. Mark Coker writes about another new solar startup, Signet Solar -- interestingly, this one is 100% dependent upon Applied Materials' equipment, and not any proprietary technology. And solar moves one more step toward commoditization... Joel Makower has the story about Wal-Mart's recent RFP for solar on 340 store rooftops -- and their subsequent pull-back to covering only 22 locations... And here's a BusinessWeek article on the current state of play in solar... Finally, is there a Chinese solar company out there that isn't IPOing?
  

• Carbon markets: Charles points us to an interesting climate change/ cleantech series on MarketWatch... He also has a very useful update on carbon trading markets... Meanwhile, Arno has some interesting thoughts on "carbon neutral".
  

Other news and notes: Cleantech investors in the news -- OVP's David Chen... Here's a nice IT pundit's take on the fundamentals behind the emergence of cleantech as an investment area... Get your VC performance benchmarks here... Peak coal???... Finally -- Bill gets it.