[Updated Oct. 30 with comments from Tobias, who's surfing in Hawaii (see below)] Although he has been stingy with details about his new startup, Kashless, I figured Seattle entrepreneur Martin Tobias had to have raised some money (he’s been hiring). Yesterday, Dan Primack of PEHub reported that Kashless recently closed a $5 million Series A round led by New York and Silicon Valley-based RRE Ventures. As John Cook of TechFlash points out, RRE was an investor in Loudeye Technologies, Tobias’s multimedia company that had a successful IPO in 2000 (raising about $70 million).

Tobias, who stepped down as CEO of Seattle-based Imperium Renewables in a high-profile split last December, is apparently continuing the cleantech theme with Kashless, whose tag line is “Reuse, recycle, free sharing.” In a blog post last week, Tobias said the idea for Kashless was born in early 2008 when he was cleaning out his garage and came across sports equipment and other stuff that could potentially be useful to others. Kashless seems to be trying to solve the problem of “more consumption where it was not necessary,” as Tobias puts it. He recounts having all kinds of difficulties giving stuff away for free, or finding a used whiteboard, over the Internet.

A former Microsoft developer and venture capitalist, Tobias looks to be focusing on the intersection of cleantech and computing—something we’ll probably see a lot more of around here, what with the rise of smart-grid technologies, recycling and waste-management opportunities, and social networks.

I spoke with Tobias by phone this afternoon. He wanted to emphasize that it was RRE’s strategic thinking, rather than personal connections, that led to the funding. “RRE has been making a good name for themselves in software meets cleantech,” he said, referring to RecycleBank and other companies in RRE’s portfolio. “They’ve thought extensively about how a VC can get leverage in cleantech without committing to huge [capital raises].”

As for Kashless, he said, “This is a low-cost company to start, with the economics of software, but playing on issues that we all know are out there, like oil prices and resource constraints. A $5 million first round is a large raise for today, for the stage the company’s at. That’ll be necessary for the company to make it through what I think will be a nuclear winter the next two years…The credit crisis is affecting every business. It’ll be very, very difficult for startups to raise capital. We’re quite happy to have a pretty significant raise with a great funding partner.”

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Heading into the baseball battles of October (go Red Sox), the dealflow is really picking up. In the past week, the Northwest has seen deals in gaming, mobile software, healthcare, genomics, and biofuels.

—Oberon Media, a maker of casual games and gaming platforms that is based in New York but has a publishing arm in Seattle (I-Play), raised $20 million from Infinity Equity, based in Hong Kong. The deal is seen as an effort by Oberon to break into the Chinese market, and a way for Infinity to get into gaming.

—The Institute for Systems Biology, based in Seattle, has formed a partnership with Mountain View, CA-based Complete Genomics to sequence the genomes of 100 people next year, and another 2,000 people in 2010. As Luke reports today, Complete Genomics has a different approach to the market, offering genome sequencing as a service.

—TriQuint Semiconductor, based in Hillsboro, OR, won a 21-month, $4.5 million contract from the Office of Naval Research to make integrated circuits and amplifiers for radar and communications applications.

—Imperium Renewables, the struggling Seattle producer of biodiesel fuel, received a new investment from its existing investors to help settle its debts with Société Générale and other creditors. Imperium hopes the recapitalization (the amount and sources were undisclosed) will help it resume operations as soon as possible.

—Dexterra, a Bothell, WA-based maker of mobile management software, closed a $21.5 million round led by New Enterprise Associates. Previous investors Canaan Partners, Intel Capital, Mesirow Financial, Motorola Ventures, and Sigma Partners also participated.

—NeuroCom International, a Clackamas, OR-based maker of tools for assessing and rehabilitating patients with balance and mobility disorders, is being acquired by Natus Medical, based in San Carlos, CA. The deal is worth $18 million.

—Issaquah, WA-based Digini, a maker of development tools for Windows and Xbox games, closed a round of funding from California Technology Ventures. The amount was not disclosed.

—Bezos Expeditions, the venture organization of Jeff Bezos from Amazon.com, has made a Series A investment in ZocDoc, a New York startup that helps people find doctors and book appointments online. The amount of the investment was not disclosed. Last month, ZocDoc announced it had raised $3.3 million from the likes of Khosla Ventures.

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The Pacific Northwest could potentially be the first region in the United States to achieve 75 percent of its electricity supply from carbon-free sources like hydropower and renewables. But that will require a dedicated new effort in cleantech policy and investment which, if successful, could create 41,000 to 63,000 new jobs in Washington and Oregon across five energy sectors by 2025.

That’s according to a study released today by Clean Edge, a cleantech research and publishing firm based in Portland, OR, and Climate Solutions, a Seattle-based non-profit organization focused on global warming. The report, entitled “Carbon-Free Prosperity 2025: How the Northwest Can Create Green Jobs, Deliver Energy Security, and Thrive in the Global Clean-Tech Marketplace,” makes the case (both economically and environmentally) for a serious cleantech push in Washington and Oregon. It points to five main technology areas in which the Northwest has a competitive advantage:

—Solar photovoltaics manufacturing. For instance, SolarWorld’s plant in Hillsboro, OR, will be the largest crystalline silicon solar-cell manufacturing facility in the U.S. by 2011.

—Green building design services. Seattle and Portland consistently rank in the top three U.S. cities with the largest number of certified green buildings.

—Wind power development. The Shepherd’s Flat Wind Farm, slated for operation in 2012 in north-central Oregon, would be the largest wind farm in the U.S., and one of the largest in the world.

—Sustainable bioenergy. Pacific Ethanol in Boardman, OR, SeQuential Biofuels in Portland, and Seattle-based Imperium Renewables are part of an emerging group of companies in biofuels in the Northwest.

—Smart-grid technologies: Liberty Lake, WA-based Itron is the top global manufacturer of advanced meter readers. Ron Pernick, managing director of Clean Edge, calls these kinds of smart sensors and communication technologies “the linchpin” of the entire cleantech effort.

However, the Northwest also faces some significant barriers in cleantech, the report says. First, there has been less venture capital activity in cleantech in Oregon and Washington (they received about $65 million and $47 million in clean-energy investment in 2007), as compared with California and Massachusetts ($1.4 billion and $378 million, respectively). Second, the report cites the lack of a 21st-century electric grid, and the “lack of a coordinated regional strategy.” That fits with what energy expert Jesse Berst of GlobalSmartEnergy (an Xconomist) told me over the summer: that other parts of the U.S., like New Mexico and Hawaii, are “more progressive and aggressive about energy.”

To overcome these barriers, the study recommends a 10-point plan to get cleantech on track in the Northwest:

—Put a price on carbon
—Increase Washington’s renewable portfolio standards (required percentage of electricity from renewables) to 25 percent by 2025
—Implement low-carbon fuel standards
—Pass aggressive green building codes
—Foster regional cooperation
—Ensure public funding for cleantech via public employees retirement system investments and through targeted cleantech funds
—Implement effective tax credits for renewables development
—Deploy cleantech workforce development programs
—Establish government purchasing policies for cleantech products and services
—Build regional smart grids and a 21st-century transmission backbone

If these steps are taken by regional government and industry, the independent study says, then Washington and Oregon could lead the U.S. in clean-energy deployments. “The cleantech industry is really taking root in the Northwest,” says Rhys Roth, co-founder of Climate Solutions. “The opportunity is real, but we have to act now, with urgency.”

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Imperium Renewables, the Seattle-based maker of biodiesel, has made job cuts in its corporate staff. The news, first reported in the Seattle P-I, was confirmed today by Imperium president John Plaza, through a spokesman. The company didn’t immediately disclose how many people were let go, or how many remain. The P-I story, citing an anonymous source, said only a handful of employees are left at the corporate office, while the company’s commercial refinery in Grays Harbor, WA continues to operate.

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