Shai Agassi's roots in Israel may have had a hand in attracting investors from across industries for his Project Better Place, a new York-based electric charging station startup.

Tel Aviv's Israel Corp., a chemicals, shipping, and technology company, put up half of the $200 million raised.

Individual investors who put up cash include Seagram's Edgar Bronfman Sr., who used to head the World Jewish Congress, and former World Bank head James Wolfensohn, who served as the U.S.'s special envoy for Gaza disengagement after his post at the bank.

Also grabbing some funding this week was Sunnyvale, Calif.'s Serious Materials, which took in $50 million in a Series B round for its green drywall.

Deals we saw this week:

• California's Khosla Ventures and the Netherlands' Bioecon formed biomass venture Kior. Khosla said it would provide Series A funding but did not disclose any financial terms. Bioecon is expected to contribute the intellectual property for its biomass catalytic cracking process to the venture. The companies said Kior would focus on the further development and commercialization of the BCC technology.
• New York's Project Better Place, headed up by Shai Agassi, took in $200 million to develop a network of charging stations for electric vehicles. Half of that cash was put up by Israel Corp., with the rest of the funding coming from Morgan Stanley, VantagePoint Venture Partners, and a group of individual private investors including James Wolfensohn and Edgar Bronfman Sr. (see Cleantech.com's Electric car charging startup raises $200M).
• Sunnyvale, Calif., green drywall maker Serious Materials closed $50 million in Series B financing. The round was led by New Enterprise Associates and Foundation Capital, with additional funding from existing investor Rustic Canyon Partners. The new cash will go toward manufacturing facilities for Serious Materials' EcoRock drywall, which will go into production in 2008, as well as for its ThermaProof high-insulating windows and to expand its Quiet sound proofing product line.
• Newport, Wales-based advanced materials startup Atraverda closed $21.4 million in Series B round financing. The round was led by new investors BankInvest New Energy Solutions and Espirito Santo Ventures. Existing investors Scottish Equity Partners, Chord Capital, Finance Wales, EnerTech Capital, and OnPoint Technologies also participated in the round.
• Winnipeg, Manitoba, wind power company Sequoia Energy picked up $16 million from Good Energies. Sequoia, which has a 99 megawatt wind farm in St. Leon, Manitoba, plans to use the financing to advance its current projects in Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada, and in North Dakota in the U.S. Sequoia said it's focused on large-scale wind energy projects in western Canada and the U.S. Midwest.
• San Francisco-based solar concentrator startup GreenVolts raised $10 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Greenlight Energy Resources, with participation from Avista and several other undisclosed investors. The company said that its CarouSol tracking system has started producing energy at Avista's Clean Energy Test Site, and that it is on track to deploy its GV1 plant in late 2008.
• Sacramento, Calif.'s Optimal Technologies International secured $25 million in financing from Goldman Sachs. The smart grid company said it plans to use the funds to accelerate its growth and expand its market presence. The investment includes an immediate payment of $13 million and milestone payments over the next 12 months.
• Ottawa's Sustainable Development Technology Canada handed out $30.3 million in new funding through its SD Tech Fund to 14 cleantech companies. The total value of the funded projects is $93.5 million, bringing the government-backed SD Tech Fund portfolio to $1.03 billion. The companies receiving cash include Montreal's Biothermica Technologies, which is developing a technology to oxidize methane in coal mine ventilation to carbon dioxide, and hydrogen storage startup HSM Systems in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
• Boston's EnerNOC (Nasdaq: ENOC), a provider of demand response and energy management systems, filed for a $205 million secondary public offering. The company plans to price 4 million shares, with 3.2 million of those coming from selling shareholders. EnerNOC did not disclose which stockholders were putting up shares for sale, but major holders include Foundation Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Braemar Energy Ventures and DFJ New England.
• Littlejohn & Co. agreed to sell Nashville, Tenn.'s Universal Lighting Technologies to Matshusita Electric Works. Financial terms were not disclosed. Universal Lighting designs and manufacturers high efficiency lighting ballasts and control systems. Littlejohn acquired Universal Lighting from MagneTek in 2001.
• Inrix, a Kirkland, Wash.–based provider of traffic flow information in the U.S., raised $15 million in Series C funding. The round was led by return backers August Capital, Bain Capital Ventures and Venrock. Inrix said it plans to use the funds to accelerate deployment of its technology and for international expansion.

Browse previous deals here.

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