Greentech investors feel the love

February 15, 2007 - Exclusive
By Dana Childs, Cleantech Group

Was there something extra in the Valentine's champagne this week? Or maybe those little blue pills were a little too potent?

Because it's been an extraordinary seven days in the business of cleantech/greentech investing, mergers and financing.

Headlines: ADM announced it's issuing $1 billion in notes. And Suntech closed on half a billion of its own (with so many convertibles flying around, you'd swear you were in California.)

This week:

  • Agricultural and biofuel powerhouse Archer Daniels Midland is offering $1 billion of Convertible Senior Notes due 2014. The notes will be convertible under "certain circumstances." ADM plans to use the proceeds to buy back up to $400 million worth of its common shares and use the balance for general working capital. ADM is one of the world's largest processors of soybeans and corn (and, therefore, biodiesel and ethanol) and a variety of food and other products.
  • Solar maker Suntech of China closed its own recent convertible notes offering this week. First it was to be $300 million (see Suntech raising another $300M.) Within a few days, it got upped to $425 million (see Suntech supersizes). The offering finally closed this week on a cool $500 million. Initial purchasers exercised their options to purchase up to an additional $75M USD of the notes, Suntech said. Nice problem to have.
  • EnerNOC Inc., a Boston-based provider of demand response and energy management solutions, has filed for a $100 million IPO. It plans to trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol ENOC, with Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley serving as co-lead underwriters. The company has raised around $28 million in VC funding, from firms like Foundation Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Braemar Energy Ventures and DFJ New England. Canaccord Adams and Jefferies & Company are to co-manage the IPO.
  • Prism Solar Technologies of New York closed on a bridge round toward a Series A financing. After securing investment of $900,000, PST received an additional $1.15M from CounterPoint Ventures, Phoenix-Fire II LLC, Magnesium.com, Inc. and individual investors. Prism is a maker of solar modules that utilize holographic optics to increase the output of a module while lowering the cost by reducing the number of cells required.
  • EoPlex Technologies, a Silicon Valley-based advanced materials company that makes miniature devices to generate, harvest and manage energy, has raised $8 million in Series C funding. ATA Ventures led the deal, and was joined by return backers Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Labrador Ventures and Draper Richards.
  • Enzyme pioneer Diversa and cellulosic ethanol producer Celunol are merging to "create a new leader in the cellulosic ethanol industry". Diversa will issue 15,000,000 shares to acquire the outstanding equity of Celunol. Diversa stockholders will retain ownership of approximately 76 percent of the combined company, and Celunol stockholders and option holders will own approximately 24 percent.
  • Cellulosic ethanol company SunOpta of Toronto completed its previously announced offering of common shares. A total of 5,175,000 common shares were issued, for gross proceeds of approximately $53.8 million USD. The offering was led by Canaccord Adams in the United States and Canaccord Capital Corporation in Canada, and included BMO Nesbitt Burns, National Bank Financial, Desjardins Securities and Octagon Capital Corporation.
  • EuroTrust, a wind energy developer in Denmark, is getting a bridge loan of up to DKK 250 million ($43,486,607 USD). The lender is Erik Damgaard Portefoeljeinvest A/S, a company owned by Erik Damgaard, the Chairman of the Board of EuroTrust. The company plans to use the proceeds to accelerate its completion of wind farm projects currently under development in Poland, Italy, Germany and new Eastern European countries.
  • Beacon Power received commitments for $10.6 million of new investment. The company says the capital will be used to fund ongoing operations, including, among other things, the expected completion of Beacon’s Smart Energy 25 flywheel development and the design of the first 20-megawatt frequency regulation power plant. The transaction is expected to close on February 15, 2007. Read Cleantech.com's Beacon Power flywheels get good spin.
  • Tiger Ethanol International announced its intention to raise an additional $4,500,000 in a private placement. The company says it's received expressions of interest and expects to close within approximately 30 days. Proceeds are to provide the capital necessary to build the company's first ethanol producing plant in Hami, in China's Xinjiang Province.
  • American Biodiesel Fuels entered into a letter of intent to acquire Houston-based Planet Resource Recovery. The transaction is through a share exchange agreement on a basis of one share of American Biodiesel Fuels Corp. for one share of Planet Resource Recovery, Inc. Planet has developed a chemical that dislodges hydrocarbons, intended for use in remediation and recovery of oil products.
  • Sindicatum Carbon Capital Ltd., a UK-based developer of greenhouse gas abatement projects worldwide, raised an undisclosed amount of private equity funding from Citigroup Venture Capital International and Black River Asset Management (subsidiary of Cargill). No terms were disclosed.
  • Canada's Nevada Geothermal Power closed its previously announced bought deal private placement of 3,850,000 units at $.65 CDN per Unit for gross proceeds of approximately $2,502,500 CDN. The net proceeds are to be used to fund further development at the company's Blue Mountain geothermal site, development of other existing projects and for working capital.
  • ThermaSource, a Santa Rosa, California-based provider of drilling, engineering and consulting services to the geothermal energy sector, raised an undisclosed amount of growth capital from US Renewables Group, Riverstone Holdings and The Carlyle Group.
  • Composite Technology, based in Irvine, California, a company that develops, manufactures and sells electrical transmission and renewable energy generation products, raised $15.6M. CapStone Investments acted as the placement agent for the investment with assistance from Lane Capital Markets.

Working on a deal yourself? As always, we appreciate tips.


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