Tesla's $45mm and other deals

• Tesla Motors today announced a $45mm Series D, led by Technology Partners and Elon Musk. TP's Ira Ehrenpreis will be joining the company's board. Capricorn Investment Group also participated, as did all previous investors (including Vantage Point Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, JP Morgan Bay Area Equity Fund, Valor Equity Partners and Compass Venture Partners). I'm ready for my test drive anytime, Ira...

• VentureWire reported today that MBA Polymers, which is developing plastics recycling facilities, has raised "at least" $20mm in financing from Benchmark Capital Europe, Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, and existing investor AsiaWest.

• Also in VWire this week: Solar concentrator play Cool Earth Solar has apparently raised a $750k seed round of convertible notes. You can read more about the company here... And LumaSense, a venture-backed effort to roll up various sensor technologies, has apparently raised between $50-100mm in debt and equity (this press release suggests that at least $25.5mm was debt) to finance their continued acquisition activity. Oak Investment Partners and Element Venture Partners provided the equity, and Comerica provided most or all of the debt.

• In one of those "capacity deals" that's tough to classify as a venture investment, Shunda Holdings, a Chinese PV-silicon production company, has raised $82mm to finance expanded operations. Shunda provides silicon to Suntech. Actis provided $40mm of the financing, and local investors Jolmo and Waichun made up the rest.
  

• Other international dealflow, as highlighted by New Energy Finance: Israeli LED startup Oree raised a $7mm Series A, of which ~$6mm was provided by Belgium's GIMV, the remainder being provided by Genesis Partners... Also in Israel, CoreFlow -- which has developed "aeromechanical" approaches to the handling and transportation of substrates (such as for solar applications) -- raised a $3.2mm round of financing led by Ofer Hi-Tech and including Dagesh FK Ltd... Finally, Australian wave energy developer Oceanlinx raised a $12mm Series A, and "may look at an IPO next."
  

Other news and notes: A nice overview of a recent cleantech investor "what's hot/ what's not" panel... Finally, expect high gas prices again this summer.