[Corrected 7/1/09]

The atmosphere at last Wednesday’s XSITE energy breakout session was electric—clean electric, that is. The topic of the hour was the future and feasibility of wind, solar, and other alternative energy industries in New England. Rob Day, president of the Renewable Energy Business Network, moderated the panel, which included Jay Fiske (a VP at solar firm Wakonda Technologies), Daniel Goldman (EVP and CFO of GreatPoint Energy, a developer of coal gasification technology), Gerry Haines (EVP and chief legal officer at biofuel firm Verenium), and Roger Freeman (president of wind power firm Solventerra Energy).

The energy industry is staring down the barrel of heavy government involvement in its affairs. The Waxman-Markey bill, which at the time of the panel was still being debated in the House of Representatives, poses both potential opportunities and potential headaches for the clean energy industry. The new emissions regulations aimed at the largest polluters, intended to force large energy companies to develop cleaner fuels, may provide a huge boost to smaller cleantech firms. “The problem with Big Oil is, even with incentives given to work on alternative fuels, they’re not really in the tech development business, so we work with them,” said Haines.

Waxman-Markey’s detractors, however, say that the stricter federal standards for controlling carbon emissions leaves less room for companies, especially smaller ones, to adjust to local conditions. The costs that are more easily absorbed by large oil or coal interests may prove more challenging to a small cleantech company.

When asked how startup energy firms could cope with more stringent government regulation, GreatPoint Energy’s Goldman noted that utilities, for the most part, have always been regulated, and that “we have to accept that we work in a regulated industry, and that government policy plays a very significant role.” On the other hand, he said, most companies “can’t afford time to sit in Washington influencing members of Congress.” He advised that smaller cleantech companies not try to lobby for policy changes on their own, but to piggyback onto the efforts of larger companies. “Figure out how your company’s interests align with, say, GE, and leverage off their focus.”

When asked to comment on the difficulties that energy startups face in acquiring venture funding, Solventerra’s Freeman, the former managing director of the nonprofit Citizens Energy Corporation, said that the lack of potential for a big—or bigger than expected—payoff was the problem. “Energy is a tangible business. You put x amount in and get x amount of energy out. You can measure the risk pretty successfully, so it doesn’t attract as much venture investment.”

“It’s not Web 2.0,” said Day.  “You have to actually make something.”

Fiske noted that in the current economic climate, investors might be cautious, but alternative sources of funding for cleantech have never been more abundant.  Cleantech can always look to “SBIR grants, competition winnings, and of course, the three Fs—friends, family, and fools.” [Editor's note: this quote was originally misattributed to Daniel Goldman. We regret the error.]

Day asked the panel to describe some of the barriers in New England to the success of cleantech. Freeman said that Boston’s deeply engrained parochialism means navigating a maze of regulation for even the simplest matters. Major additions and infrastructure changes can only be that much more of a headache. “It took my friend two years to get a permit to build a deck. How long do you think it takes to get one for a wind turbine?”

“The good thing is, we have a forward-thinking administration here in Massachusetts,” said Goldman. The Patrick administration, he says, is a staunch supporter of cleantech innovation.

Wakonda’s Fiske said that Massachusetts could be doing more to capitalize on its intellectual resources, and that universities in particular could better support spin–offs and the commercialization of their research. The panelists all concurred that the concentration of both high-level research institutions and scientists was New England’s greatest advantage.

“Intellectual capital,” said Haines, “is our best resource.”

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Cambridge, MA-based GreatPoint Energy, which is developing technology that converts coal into cleaner-burning natural gas, said today that it has struck an agreement with Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) giving Dow the right to buy natural gas generated at GreatPoint’s facilities. Dow was the lead investor in GreatPoint’s $103 million equity financing round in 2007, providing cash for the company’s first pilot facility, which recently began operation in Somerset, MA.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

We hear a lot about the bioengineered enzymes, switch grass, and multiple feedstocks needed to provide the massive amounts of raw material for the clean energy era. Another key ingredient is water—and lots of it. So after launching clean energy firms in recent years, entrepreneur Aaron Mandell started Cambridge, MA-based Oasys Water last year. Oasys, which announced a $10 million financing last month, is commercializing desalinization technology that he hopes will curb shortages of drinking water in the U.S. and abroad.

Mandell has co-founded alternative energy firms GreatPoint Energy and AltaRock Energy. GreatPoint Energy, based in Cambridge, requires lots of water in its process to turn coal and other feedstocks into natural gas. AltaRock, headquartered in Sausalito, CA, with an office in Seattle, plans to pump cold water deep into the ground where geothermal heat would turn it into steam to power electricity-generating turbines.

“If you look at a lot of alternative energy processes, they are more water intensive than a lot of traditional energy processes,” Mandell, CEO of Oasys Water, says. “So water becomes as much of a valuable energy resource as coal, or oil, or natural gas.”

Mandell formed Oasys last June with technology invented at Yale University and seed money from GreatPoint Ventures, a Cambridge venture development firm where he is a managing partner and co-founder. Xconomy noted last month that Oasys raised $10 million in a first round of venture financing led by Flagship Ventures of Cambridge, Advanced Technology Ventures in Waltham, MA, and Silicon Valley’s Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Mandell’s explanation of Oasys’ technology brought me back … Next Page »

Comments (2) | Reprints | Share:          

“You should visit us more often!” said one of our hosts during the MIT Sloan School of Management’s Massachusetts Tech Trek two weeks ago. The host’s enthusiasm was understandable—the company had just received news of a fresh round of funding in the midst of our visit. But such enthusiasm and energy (pun intended) was clearly evident at all of the firms that we visited as part of the Trek’s energy track on January 12-14, and was a welcome distraction from the economic malaise we keep reading about.

Co-sponsored by the Sloan Energy and Environment Club, the Energy track allowed our group to visit energy-related businesses in the Boston area to learn about firms in different stages and sub-sectors of the energy space. With the economic crisis in play and Barack Obama’s administration taking control, it was definitely an interesting and opportune time to be visiting these companies.

The energy firms we visited covered energy generation and transformation, efficiency and conservation, and consulting and research. In the generation space, we met with firms working on fossil-to-energy, storage, waste-to-energy and solar power. Interestingly, each is currently in different stages of development as a business entity.

Ze-gen, which started with SEED funding in 2005, utilizes a molten metal bath to vaporize construction and demolition and municipal waste to synthesis gas and electricity. Chief operating officer George McMillan said the company’s business model is based on the premise that they can produce energy cheaply even without taking into consideration any carbon offsets, tipping fees, or renewable energy credits. Ze-gen has plans to build its first commercial plant by 2012.

GreatPoint Energy is tackling the controversial problem of utilizing fossil fuels to “cleanly” produce energy. Dan Goldman, GPE’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, told our group that the advantages of GreatPoint’s process are low cost due to the lower temperature catalytic process, and an ability to capture CO2, which can be delivered for oil recovery or geological sequestration. GreatPoint is planning on starting operations on its $30 million feedstock testing facility in Somerset, MA, and signed an agreement with Datang Hyoin Electric Power Company in China to build and operate a plant that will process 1,000 tons per day of feedstock.

Innovative battery maker A123 Systems‘ technology went through multiple phases to reach its current level, said Andy Chu, director of the company’s automotive product line. Chu seemed confident that A123′s diversification into new areas including grid stabilization and airplane starter battery backups will ensure the company’s future success.

There is a small but loyal group of entrepreneurs and thought leaders in the U.S. who are advocating energy efficiency over energy generation. Advanced Electron Beams is one of these. AEB claims that its technology reduces energy usage by 40 to 90 percent in the surface sterilization, air treatment, and advanced curing industries, according to CEO Mitch Tyson. With a Fortune Global 1000 ranking behind them, AEB is seeking Series C funding to take their technology application to the next level.

Remember when Nanotechnology was the “it” word? You’ll be glad to know some of the nano materials have become commercial and are widely used now. Aspen Aerogels manufactures insulation materials that are two to eight times more thermally efficient than convention materials due to their nanoscale properties. Don Young, CEO of Aspen, told us that the firm is concentrating on reaching a reasonable earnings level for 2009 and diversifying into new segments.

The huge inflow of human and financial capital into the energy sector in recent years has necessitated the need for unambiguous information on the viability of technologies and business ideas. The Brattle Group has industry practice groups in most major traditional energy sectors and has developed expertise in pricing carbon and trading emissions. Dean Murphy, a principal at Brattle, felt the new administration should focus on controlling carbon emissions via a carbon tax rather than through the cap-and-trade program.

Lux Research, our last host on the trek, is a strategic advice firm that provides intelligence and consulting services in the nanotech, solar, power, water, and bio-sciences sectors. Lux Research analysts gather critical information by visiting and talking to firms in the specific sectors, according to president Matt Nordan. He emphasized a continuing need for critical analysis as we move to large-scale investing where the tolerance for market and technical risk is low.

Our interactions with so many energetic and exciting entrepreneurs, investors, and thought leaders rejuvenated our group. Leaving the classrooms to witness innovative technologies in person was a rejuvenating experience for me personally. We are looking forward to being part of a revolutionary energy innovation phase in our history.

Comments (3) | Reprints | Share:          

Venture investments in New England firms were down in the first quarter of 2008. Way down. But just how far they tumbled is a matter of debate—as regional numbers from the two leading venture-data sources, just released, differ far more than usual. New England remained in second place nationwide in one study, but fell from second place to fourth, according to the other.

First-quarter 2008 venture investments in New England tumbled some 24 percent to $721 million from $951 million in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to the MoneyTree report released today from the National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers and based on data from Thomson Reuters. Meanwhile, data from Dow Jones VentureSource, released over the weekend, shows the region in a far greater downturn, losing 36 percent as it slid from $904 million to a mere $577 million. The two groups have different methodologies and definitions of venture investment, but I haven’t seen them differ by this much in the time that Xconomy’s been following the numbers. A VentureSource spokesman said he had no ready explanation beyond their differing methodologies.

VentureSource has New England sliding to fourth place nationwide, behind San Francisco/Silicon Valley, which rose 10 percent to $2.6 billion invested in 213 deals, Southern California ($672 million, 63 deals) and New York Metro ($602 million, 52 deals). Its data showed New England firms receiving $577 million in 72 deals, so by deal number the area was still second. According to the MoneyTree data, the region was still the nation’s second most active by VC dollars invested in area firms, after Silicon Valley. But that report breaks out Los Angeles/Orange County and San Diego separately. If they are combined, Southern California would take second place and New England would be third.

Nationwide, financing numbers were also down, though not as far down as New England. The MoneyTree report showed an 8.5 percent overall decline, from $7.8 billion in the last quarter of 2007 to $7.1 billion. That was the smallest quarterly outlay since Q4 of 2006. VentureSource saw a similar slide of roughly 8 percent from the fourth quarter, to $6.8 billion.

On a national level, healthcare was the sole field to record an overall decline in venture outlays in the first quarter compared to a year earlier, according to VentureSource. This sector, which encompasses biopharmaceuticals and medical devices, dropped 43 percent, from roughly $3 billion to $1.7 billion. Information technology, by contrast, was up more than 20 percent compared to last year’s first quarter, rising from $3.2 billion to $3.9 billion invested in 358 deals. Thirty-four cleantech deals garnered roughly $532 million, flat with a year earlier.

New England data mirrored this trend, at least to some degree. The largest area of invesment by far was was information technology, where $321 million was invested during the quarter, according to VentureSource. This was down sharply from the $514 million a year earlier, but accounted for more than half the region’s investment outlays. Nearly half of this total, $154.5 million, went into 18 software deals. The next biggest area was biopharmaceuticals, which saw $92 million put into 11 deals. This was actually one deal more than the first quarter of 2007, but the total value of the investments was down from the $304 million of a year earlier.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Even as the economy slowed in the second half of 2007, U.S. venture capital firms continued to pump money into clean technology deals—bringing the total invested in cleantech for the year to $2.5 billion, up 79 percent from 2006. Deal volume also skyrocketed some 54 percent, and overall the field accounted for more than 8 percent of all U.S. venture investment, making it as big as the entire U.S. consumer-retail sector.

So goes the news from a report released today by Dow Jones VentureSource, building on a similar study we reported on in September that covered the first six months of 2007. Cleantech investments were also strong globally, the report indicated, rising 43 percent to just over $3 billion worldwide. The ebullient U.S. cleantech market (does anyone else think we’re a tad over-invested in this sector?) accounted for 83 percent of this total. In Europe, less giddy investors put some $360 million (266 million Euros) into clean energy deals last year, a 27 percent jump over 2006. Europe was the world’s second-biggest region for cleantech investment, representing 12 percent of the global figure. The big exception to the global trend was third place China (4 percent of the total), where only six cleantech deals were done last year, compared to 15 in 2006—and investments fell 70 percent, from $424 million to $129 million.

In the U.S., the median deal size for clean energy firms rose to $8 million last year from $7.5 million in 2006. The median pre-money valuation of cleantech companies hit $27 million, up slightly from $26.3 million in 2006.

The “hottest” area of investment was solar energy [editor's note: groan.], which took in nearly $700 million in 27 deals. Transportation and biofuels were the next biggest winners (see list below for the top 10 areas of investment). One well-publicized area that didn’t make the top 10 was wind, which attracted just $33 million in five deals. As we’ve noted in this story about UPC Wind, the politics and environmental controls around wind farms might be discouraging investment in this sector.

When it comes to how Massachusetts and New England fared, it depends on whether you’re a glass-half-full person or a glass-half-empty type. Let’s take the half-empty view first. In the same way the U.S. dominates the global picture, California dominates the U.S. landscape. The Golden State, with 66 deals totaling $1.3 billion, accounted for just over half of the country’s cleantech investment total. It was also home to the nation’s largest cleantech deal of 2007, as Palo Alto-based Project Better Place raised $200 million to develop what VentureSource describes as “a market-based transportation infrastructure for electric vehicles.”

The good news is that the clear—albeit very distant—second place winner was Massachusetts. With 11 deals tallying $273 million, it handily outpaced third place Washington state, which was home to eight deals totaling $175 million.

Cambridge’s GreatPoint Energy, which took in $100 million, led the New England pack, followed by Boston-Power and Konarka Technologies, which each raised $45 million last year. A123 Systems of Watertown, which we profiled here, raised $40 million in venture financing out of what VentureSource was a total of $70 million it took in through various forms of investment.

Following the page break are lists showing U.S. and New England cleantech leaders and other data from the report. … Next Page »

Comments (1) | Reprints | Share:          

I’m too bummed about the Super Bowl to come up with a snappy lede for today’s roundup. Here are last week’s deals:

—Coal gasification firm GreatPoint Energy of Cambridge, MA, forged a long-term agreement with St. Louis-based Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU) to build plants close to the company’s mines in Montana and Wyoming.

—Visible Measures closed a $13.5 million Series B funding round led by Menlo Park, CA’s Mohr Davidow Ventures and Cambridge, MA-based General Catalyst. The Boston-based firm last week unveiled its “VisibleSuite” audience measurement system at the Demo 08 conference.

—Inverness Medical Innovations (AMEX: IMA) of Waltham, MA, inked a deal to purchase Marietta, GA’s Matria Healthcare (NASDAQ: MATR) for some $1.18 billion in cash, stock, and the assumption of debt. Inverness investors didn’t seem to like the deal; the company’s stock fell 8 percent on news of the acquisition, the latest in a long string of buys for Inverness.

—Facebook shopping-engine maker StyleFeeder of Cambridge, MA, raised $2 million in Series A financing from Highland Capital Partners and Schooner Capital; the same two firms provided the startup’s $1 million seed round last year.

—Virtual Iron Software of Lowell, MA, raised $20 million in equity capital from Highland Capital Partners, Matrix Partners, Goldman Sachs, Intel Capital, and SAP Ventures, bringing the virtualization firm’s total venture financing to $65 million.

—Boston-based MocoSpace, a provider of cell phone-based social networking, closed a $4 million second-round financing from General Catalyst, Pilot Group, former eBay executive Michael Dearing, and others.

—Second Rotation announced it had completed a $4.4 million initial financing round led by Venrock and including the participation of angel investors Austin Ligon, Ashton Peery, and Henry Vogel. The Waltham, MA-based startup buys consumers’ unwanted electronics and sells them online.

—Yet another virtualization firm, AutoVirt of Nashua, NH, closed a $4 million Series A funding round. Waltham, MA-based Kepha Partners and Boston-based Sigma Partner participated in the deal.

—Watertown, MA’s Athenahealth (NASDAQ: ATHN) pulled its planned secondary stock offering, citing poor market conditions. The news came on the same day that Bob posted about Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush, Jr.’s pointed advice for entrepreneurs contemplating an IPO.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Good old 2007. Whether just starting out or going public, it was a fine year for many Massachusetts technology firms. In fact, as we reported last week, a bevy of four-quarter Boston area initial public offerings helped make last year the best IPO year for venture-backed companies since 2004. Today, we’re presenting the numbers on the biggest Bay State venture deals of 2007.

Not surprisingly, cost-heavy energy and biotech firms dominated the list. In fact, a pair of energy companies, GreatPoint Energy ($100 million) and A123 Systems ($70 million), claimed the first two slots, with another duo a bit farther down. Biopharmaceutical firms snared another four of the spots, leaving just a pair of IT firms in the top 10—one of which (Brightcove) is an Internet-based content distribution company, and the other (DarwinSuzsoft) is an outsourcing firm.

Here’s the list, with the lead investors behind them, as provided by Dow Jones VentureSource. All except Syndax Pharmaceuticals, which closed its first round of financing, were later stage deals.

Massachusetts’ Top 10 Venture Deals of 2007

GreatPoint Energy (Cambridge) — $100 million
Lead investor: Dow Chemical

A123Systems (Watertown) — $70 million
Lead investor: GE Capital Commercial Finance

Targanta Therapeutics (Cambridge) — $70 million
Lead investors: OrbiMed Advisors, Radius Ventures, Skyline Ventures.

Brightcove (Cambridge) — $59.5 million
Lead investors: AllianceBernstein, Maverick Capital

Aveo Pharmacecuticals* (Cambridge) — $53 million
Lead investors not identified.** New investors this round included: Biogen Idec, Bessemer Venture Partners, Merlin BioMed Group, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Schering-Plough Corporation, Vatera Holdings)

Microbia (Cambridge) — $50 million
Lead investor:** Ridgeback Capital

DarwinSuzsoft* (Wakefield) — $48 million
Lead investor: Francisco Partners

Konarka Technologies (Lowell) — $45 million
Lead investor: Good Energies

Boston-Power (Westborough) — $45 million
Lead investor: Oak Investment Partners

Syndax Pharmaceuticals (Waltham) — $40 million
Lead investor: Domain Associates

* company name not divulged by Dow Jones, but we were able to piece it together
** Investors not identified by Dow Jones, but…

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Massachusetts is second only to California when it comes to raking in VC dollars for cleantech—and those dollars are evidently piling up faster than maple leaves in autumn. This according to new data from Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association.

The numbers, released yesterday, show that in the first three quarters of this year, U.S. venture capital firms invested some $2.6 billion during 168 cleantech deals. This is up from the $1.8 billion invested in the whole of 2006, which itself was more than 3 times 2005′s cleantech investment.

In terms of VC dollars raised in the first nine months of 2007, Massachusetts ($292.6 million) was a distant second to California ($726.2 million), but still way ahead of third-place Texas ($149.4 million).

U.S. Cleantech Investments by State (1Q-3Q 2007)

Source: Thomson Financial/NVCA

As far as technologies go, solar was the big winner, taking a $664.6 million piece of the pie. But the company that raised the most in Q1-Q3 was actually a coal gasification firm, GreatPoint Energy of Cambridge, MA. GreatPoint’s massive $100 million Series C round contributed the lion’s share of the $115 million it raised in that period from the likes of Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV), Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Khosla Ventures, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

With interest in cleantech investing exploding, some observers are sounding a note of caution. In the NVCA/Thomson announcement, for instance, NVCA president Mark Heesen emphasized the risks of playing in such a new space: “Investing in new technologies can be fraught with pitfalls and is not for the inexperienced or the faint of heart… Short-term ‘tourists’ should steer clear.” And Xconomist Bill Aulet has previously devoted some serious Xconomy real estate to his qualms about cleantech (much to the chagrin of many of our readers).

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

In the shadow of the New England’s largest coal-fired power plant, the Brayton Point station in Somerset, MA, Governor Deval Patrick presided yesterday over a ceremony heralding a future in which coal can be inexpensively converted into cleaner-burning natural gas before being used to generate electricity.

The ceremony marked an agreement between Cambridge-based clean-energy startup GreatPoint Energy and Richmond, VA, utility Dominion, which owns Brayton Point, to construct a $25 million coal-gasification demonstration plant on the plant’s grounds, near Fall River. The project will create at least 100 new jobs in the area and will give GreatPoint a permanent headquarters in Massachusetts, according to the company.

GreatPoint is working to commercialize gasification reactors where high-pressure steam is used to pulverize coal into tiny particles. The particles are then exposed to a proprietary catalyst that breaks them down into a mixture of carbon dioxide and methane (natural gas).

“Over the past year, we’ve spent 1,400 hours operating a pilot facility in Des Plaines, Illinois, testing various feedstocks to prove our technology to convert coal, biomass, and petroleum coke waste into pipeline-quality natural gas,” says Dan Goldman, GreatPoint’s chief financial officer. “So we know the process works. This facility we’re planning to build in Somerset is a demonstration facility and R&D center. It will be our home for the next 15-odd years, where we’ll work on improving the technology.”

Construction of the demonstration plant and R&D facility is expected to take 12 months. “We will use the lab to investigate improvements to the catalytic process, and then use the demonstration gasification facility to do test runs,” Goldman says. The company, which is currently based in the Cambridge Innovation Center in Kendall Square, also hopes to transplant its corporate headquarters to the facility, he says.

“GreatPoint is a leading example of a Massachusetts-based company that is poised to bring a potentially game-changing energy technology into the commercial market,” said Ian Bowles, Massachusetts secretary of energy and environmental affairs, in a press release about the Dominion agreement. “I’m very pleased that their next phase of development will happen here in the Commonwealth, at Brayton Point.”

The company, which last month rounded up $100 million in Series C funding last month—the nation’s second-largest venture financing of the third quarter—is also working on finding a site for a much larger pilot facility where it hopes to demonstrate that its gasification works on a commercial scale. It’s unlikely that facility will be in Massachusetts, since the company plans to sequester the carbon dioxide generated in the gasification process by pumping it underground. Depleted oil fields are the best place to do that, says Goldman, and Massachusetts doesn’t have many of those.

Comments | Reprints | Share:          

Two just-released reports showed strong venture capital activity in New England in the third quarter. The surveys, though, differed a bit on overall growth patterns and regional standings. One showed New England in second place nationwide to the Bay Area, while the other put Southern California in the No. 2 spot, ahead of New England for the third quarter in a row.

The first survey, released on Saturday by Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young, reported that U.S. venture firms had invested a total of $8.1 billion in the quarter, marking the ninth consecutive quarter-to-quarter increase in venture outlays—and the highest quarterly investment figure since Q1 of 2001 (think bubble). The New England share of that pie was $849 million, which flowed into 76 deals. That marked a healthy 28 percent growth for the region versus the same quarter last year. However, the report noted that for the third consecutive quarter Southern California—with $961 million invested in 78 deals—had edged out New England for second place nationwide.

The second report, a MoneyTree survey officially released Monday but publicized by a few publications over the weekend, showed a somewhat lower national figure of $7.1 billion invested in the third quarter. The report, sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association and based on data from Thomson Financial, also put this as a sharp increase over the 2006 third quarter. But where the VentureOne report spotlighted steady growth, the MoneyTree report says that the third quarter of 2007 is down slightly from the first two. The two reports apparently differ in how they separate venture capital per se from the larger category of private equity—but despite repeated queries neither one can fully explain what those differences are.

As far as New England goes, the MoneyTree data put the region in second place nationwide, with $998 million invested, the highest tally for any quarter of the year. That outstripped San Diego and Los Angeles/Orange County, third and fourth place, respectively, which combined tallied just $784 million for the quarter. MoneyTree does, however, put Southern California slightly ahead of New England for the year.

The most popular sectors nationwide were life sciences ($1.9 billion), which includes biotechnology and medical devices; software ($1.11 billion); and Internet ($1.1 billion)—but there were also strong showings in cleantech ($844 million), and media and entertainment ($509 million), according to the MoneyTree report. Three of the quarter’s top five deals were in cleantech, led by Cambridge’s GreatPoint Energy, which converts biomass and coal to clean-burning natural gas. GreatPoint, which took in $100 million, was the second-largest deal nationwide during the quarter (to Pennsylvania-based Globus Medical’s $110 million), and the largest in New England. It was also the only New England deal to make the national top 10.

VentureOne noted that $3.8 billion of the quarter’s venture investments were put into later rounds, the most invested in late-stage companies since 2001. “These sizable later rounds helped to push the overall median for a venture capital deal in the third quarter to $7.92 million, a new record,” it said. Combined seed and first-round investments, VentureOne reported, held flat at $1.74 billion, about the same as last year’s third quarter.

The MoneyTree report had a somewhat different take on these trends as well. It put later stage deals at $3 billion, down slightly form the second quarter’s $3.2 billion. Seed and early-stage deals fell 15 percent quarter-to-quarter, from $1.7 billion to $1.4 billion, it said.

Back to New England. Here is some data from VentureOne on the most active area venture firms and the number of deals they did in the quarter:

North Bridge Venture Partners—7
IDG Ventures Boston—6
Polaris Venture Partners—4
Highland Capital Partners—4
VantagePoint Venture Partners—3
Matrix Partners—3
Globespan Capital Partners—3
Draper Fisher Jurvetson—3

Here are the fields where New England saw the biggest investments:

Biotechnology Therapeutics—$125.2 million
Oil/Gas Exploration & Production—$100.0 million
Alternative Energy Production—$71.5 million
IT Business Services—$62.5 million
Business Applications Software—$62.5 million

Finally, here are New England’s top 10 venture deals for the quarter, also according to VentureOne. All were later stage deals, except No. 4, Authoria, which was a “restart”:

1) GreatPoint Energy (Energy)—$100.0 million
2) Konarka Technologies (Energy)—$45.0 million
3) Xcellerex (Biopharmaceuticals)—$31.0 million
4) Authoria (Software)—$22.5 million
5) TPI Composites (Energy)—$22.0 million
6) Intrinsic Therapeutics (Medical Devices/Equipment)—$21.0 million
7) Inotek Pharmaceuticals (Biopharmaceuticals)—$19.3 million
8) Mintera (Communications & Networks)—$19.0 million
9) PeopleCube (Software)—$17.0 million
10) Adnexus Therapeutics (Biopharmaceuticals)—$15.9 million

Comments (1) | Reprints | Share: