Shares of SolarCity Corp jumped more than 50 percent during their market debut on Thursday, approaching the valuation the solar power company had sought before it was forced to slash its IPO price.

BrightSource Energy said it raised more than $80 million of additional equity financing, brings its total equity financing to more than $615 million. Alstom and VantagePoint Capital Partners lead the round with DFJ, CalSTRS, DBL Investors, Goldman Sachs, Chevron Technology Ventures and BP Ventures and others joining.

Are you an MBA student? Check out our new internship job board for some great opportunities at top-notch outfits like Hamilton Lane.

Q3 certainly wasn’t a pretty quarter for venture fundraising. In fact, it was downright ugly, with just $1.72 billion raised by 52 U.S.-based venture funds, the smallest amount raised since Q3 2003, according to the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters (publisher of peHUB). In contrast, 49 U.S.-based VC funds raised nearly $2.9 billion in [...]

The California Endowment, the state’s largest, private health foundation with assets of more than $3 billion, has committed $10 million to DBL Investors’ second fund—the DBL Equity Fund II. Venture specialist DBL Investors has invested in 28 start-up companies to date.

San Francisco-based venture capital firm DBL Investors has added Lisa Hagerman to the newly created position of director of its Double Bottom Line Programs. DBL also added two associates – Patrick Sagisi and Sarah Ham – to its team, following the recent close of its $140 million second fund. Hagerman joins DBL Investors from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she led “More for Mission,” a research and advocacy initiative. Sagisi was previously a director in the corporate audit team of Samsung. Ham, previously an intern with DBL, recently completed an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

OPX Biotechnologies Inc. has closed on $36.5 million in a first close of its Series C round, the company said Thursday. US Renewables Group led the round, which included investment from new investor DBL Investors and from existing investors Mohr Davidow Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures, Altira Group and X/Seed Capital. Pacific Crest Securities provided financial advice to OPXBIO. As a result of the round, US Renewables Group managing director Jonathan Koch has joined the OPXBIO board. The company will use the money for development and commercialization of an industrial-scale process for producing its first renewable chemical, BioAcrylic.

Hayward, Calif.-based Primus Power, a grid-scale energy storage company, has closed on $11 million from DBL Investors, I2BF Global Ventures, Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The infusion will be used for development and commercialization of Primus’ distributed storage technology, the company said Tuesday. The company has also previously raised money in grants from the United States Department of Energy, the Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy, and the California Energy Commission.

Milpitas, Calif.-based Soladigm, which develops highly energy-efficient dynamic glass for buildings, has raised an additional $10 million in financing, closing its Series C round with a total of $40 million. New investors The Westly Group and Navitas Capital contributed to the round, as did the company’s existing shareholders: San Francisco-based DBL Investors and Cayman Islands-based firm Nano Dimension. GE Energy Financial Services, Khosla Ventures and Sigma Partners.

Tim Westergren, the founder of online radio network Pandora, wouldn’t discuss his company’s plans for a potential $100 million IPO, which Reuters reported last month is imminent, but he offered plenty of lessons for startups that are struggling to make a go of it. “Do what it takes, get people to work for free, and [...]