There wasn’t a lot of news out of San Diego’s high tech community last week. On the other hand, the news we had was big. Get your roundup here.

—Aptera Motors, which raised an estimated $36 million in venture funding to develop a teardrop-shaped, three-wheel electric vehicle, shut down its operations Friday, according to an e-mail signed by Aptera CEO Paul Wilbur that was sent to customers and others. The company ran out of resources, Wilbur says. After nearly two years of discussions and “exhaustive due diligence” with the U.S. Department of Energy, Wilbur writes that Aptera got a “conditional commitment letter” for a $150 million loan. However, Aptera needed fresh capital to match the DOE loan and Wilbur says large private investors had no appetite to invest in “the perceived low volume return of our three-wheeled vehicle.” Aptera’s venture investors included Idealab, Esenjay Investments, and Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google Inc., according to VentureBeat.

—Nettle, the San Diego startup that came to light in August with a $500,000 investment from Google Ventures, launched MovieGoer, a new iPhone app. The free app helps people browse movies with friends from their social circle, find friends who have seen the movie, arrange to go see movies with their friends, and submit quick video reviews from their iPhone. CEO Brian Dear who founded San Diego-based Eventful in 2004, co-founded Nettle in late 2010 with Dan O’Neill, the chief technology officer. The two met a decade ago at MP3.com, where they worked together.

—San Diego-based Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) acquired Andover, MA-based Pixtronix, which has been developing low-power display technology for liquid crystal displays (LCD). Scott Kirsner of The Boston Globe reported the price is about $175 million to $200 million. While Pixtronix relies on micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology, the move is nevertheleess puzzling, as Qualcomm is spending close to $1 billion to build a factory in Taiwan for its own Mirasol display technology.

—A spokeswoman for San Diego’s Chumby Industries tells me the software company has struck another partnership that will make its catalog of apps available on the LG Smart TV program. In June, Chumby showcased how its offering of Web-based music, photos, games, and web sites worked with Internet-connected TVs and set-top boxes under a collaboration with Pace. Chumby also has licensed its technology for use in its Dash internet-connected device, and the Tablet S, which Sony introduced in August.

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San Diego’s innovation community saw some new startups and new money emerge last week. We’ve got it all wrapped up for you, and our briefing begins now.

—Following a global-and-local Web 2.0 strategy, San Diego-based Eventful is now hosting roughly 5 million local events for roughly 20 million users, who can search the website by category, performer, or venue to find events in their local markets. Eventful helps users track concert tours, live shows, sports, political rallies and other activities.

—-U.S. venture investments in cleantech and alternative energy amounted to almost $1.1 billion during the second quarter ending June 30, according to a cleantech investing report released by the Ernst & Young accounting firm. That was up slightly from more than $1 billion that cleantech raised during the previous quarter, but 44 percent less than the $1.9 billion invested in cleantechs in the year-ago quarter. Just over half of the $1.1 billion total went to cleantech deals in California, but 14 of the 15 biggest deals were in Northern California.

—Terry Moore, a longtime venture advocate in San Diego, is raising a venture capital mini-fund to help what he contends is an underserved startup community in San Diego and Southern California. Moore wants to raise between $10 million and $15 million for Moore Venture Partners, which recently participated in a $15 million C round for Daylight Solutions, a San Diego solid-state laser maker.

—San Francisco’s Crosslink Capital led a $6 million venture round in San Diego’s TakeLessons, a five-year-old startup that operates a Web platform that connects people to certified music instructors in more than 2,800 U.S. cities.

—Malama Composites, a San Diego cleantech startup that uses green materials to make structural foam, has raised almost $696,000 of equity funding in a round that is targeting almost $1.2 million. Malama Composites intends to close its Series A Round in coming weeks.

—At an afternoon conference at the … Next Page »

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[Corrected 8/8/11, 11:35 am. See below.] Eventful CEO Jordan Glazier likes to describe the San Diego Web-based startup as an “eBay for local events and entertainment,” and there are more than a few similarities.

One of them is Glazier himself. Before joining Eventful in 2006, he spent five years as a general manager at the San Jose, CA-based giant. Glazier refers to his time at eBay as a five-year study in the economics of marketplaces, supply, and demand, and he was deeply involved there in developing and managing three of eBay’s biggest business units: consumer electronics; computers; and business & industrial. His predecessor, Eventful founder Brian Dear, also had worked at eBay (as well as San Diego’s MP3.com), and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Network is among Eventful’s prominent investors.

Eventful, which began in 2004 simply as EVDB (as in Events and Venues Database), also has long since evolved into an eBay-like online exchange that is both global and local. The company’s Web-based platform hosts roughly 5 million local events at any given time for some 20 million users worldwide. Eventful users can search the website by category, performer, or venue to find events in their local markets. Concerts and shows are the big draw, of course, but the site also tracks sports, political rallies, and other activities. A comprehensive movie section features local movie show times, trailers, reviews, and links to buy tickets.

“It’s the best way to get the word out about local events,” Glazier says. “Every month, 20 million people rely on Eventful’s local markets, which includes 80,000 people in San Diego who are using Eventful monthly to answer the question, ‘Honey, what do you want to do this weekend?’”

[Corrected 8/8/11, 11:30 am to show company raised $20 million, not $30 million.] Today the seven-year-old company has 60 employees—up from seven employees just five years ago—and has tripled its revenue each year for the past two consecutive years. The company has raised a total of $20 million in three rounds (the most recent was in October 2008), and it is not currently looking to raise additional capital. Aside from Omidyar, Eventful’s investors include Twitter co-founder Evan Williams; Zynga founder Mark Pincus; entrepreneur and digital media guru Esther Dyson; telecommunications giant Telefónica; and the venture firms Draper, Fisher, Jurvetson and Bay Partners.

Since Glazier stepped in as CEO, Eventful has expanded its … Next Page »

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The early returns on venture capital investments that came in over the weekend from Dow Jones VentureSource pretty much confirmed what we’ve been hearing. VC firms are battening down the hatches to weather the economic downturn.

The nationwide survey showed venture funding in new companies declined by 30 percent during the last three months of 2008, with $5.5 billion going into 554 deals. That compares with $7.9 billion in 718 deals during the same quarter in 2007. The drop in the fourth quarter accounted for most, if not all, of the overall 8 percent decline for the full year, with $28.8 billion invested in 2,550 deals nationwide throughout 2008.

In the San Diego region, the survey showed VC investments plunged by 57 percent during the last three months of 2008. Funding for life sciences startups went into a freefall, dropping by 84 percent, which seemed to account for much of the overall downturn in the region. For example, VC funding for IT deals during the fourth quarter actually increased from almost $91.7 million in 2007 to $105.9 million in 2008.

Dow Jones VentureSource says $182.5 million went into 14 deals during the fourth quarter in San Diego. That compares with almost $425.6 million invested in 25 deals during the same quarter last year. In the healthcare category, the Dow Jones survey counted just $51.2 million in five San Diego deals in the fourth quarter; and $325.9 million in 11 deals during the same quarter in 2007.

The venture firms that specialize in life science deals are mindful about keeping more money in reserve, says Kevin Kinsella, founder of San Diego’s Avalon Ventures. “Because I can’t rely on my confreres to come in on my B round deals,” Kinsella says, it may be necessary to act as the “sole provider” for some startups during those years. “So that time is getting stretched out and that means fewer deals get done.”

Doug Obenshain, an Ernst & Young partner in San Diego who advises technology startups, says overall VC investing in the area last year, (87 deals for $1.14 billion) was roughly comparable to the average (97 deals and $1.14) billion for the years 2002 through 2006. He also noted VC investments were diversified across cleantech, communications, Internet, and life sciences startups. Still, Obenshain concedes, “The financial crisis in the fourth quarter has impacted nearly everyone, and it had an impact on venture financing as well.”

According to the survey released by Dow Jones VentureSource, the five biggest venture investments in the region during the fourth quarter were:

—Luxtera, a Carlsbad communications and networking equipment company, got $26.7 million in a later stage round that was dated Dec. 31, with funding provided by Advanced Equities Financial, August Capital, New Enterprise Associates, and Sevin Rosen Funds.

—Fallbrook Technologies, a San Diego automotive equipment startup, got $25.4 million in December in a first round led by NGEN Partners and Robeco Cleantech private equity.

—Anaphore, a San Diego biopharmaceutical, got $25 million in a first round led by 5AM Ventures, Versant Ventures, and Apposite Capital. (Anaphore reported the deal on Jan. 7, but Dow Jones VentureSource dated it Dec. 31.)

—Awarepoint, a San Diego wireless communications company, got $13.3 million in November in a later stage deal led by Avalon Ventures, Cardinal Partners, individual investors, undisclosed investors, and Venrock.

—Eventful, a San Diego software company operating a search portal, got $10 million in October from Bay Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Telefonica Capital.

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Eventful is celebrating its own financing event as it closes a $10 million Series C round, the company announced today. San Diego-based Eventful, a four-year-old firm that enables users to promote and track local events online, says the capital infusion came from new investor and Spanish telecommunications giant Telefónica (NYSE:TEF) and previous venture backers Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Bay Partners, both of Menlo Park, CA.

With 8 million registered users and 100 million widget views each month, Eventful says that it is the international leader in online event services. Eventful CEO Jordan Glazier says in a statement that the Telefónica connection provides opportunities “which will cement our position as the leading local events service in the world.”

Eventful offers one-stop shopping for Web surfers looking for things to do or event promoters looking to tap and attract an audience. The site also allows users to build widgets to help them track events of interest such as concerts or political rallies, and it has developed applications for both MySpace and Facebook. In fact, Eventful has been a popular tool among supporters of both Presidential candidates looking to exploit the Web and social networks to reach voters. And former Democratic candidate John Edwards used Eventful last year to organize a contest to see which group of supporters could attract the most people to a campaign rally.

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