Next Step Living, Inc. said it raised $18.2 million in a Series C financing led by VantagePoint Capital Partners and joined by existing investors, including Black Coral Capital and Mass Green Energy Fund. The round remains open.

It is not an easy time to be a cleantech venture capitalist. Still a hardened group of investors presses on. A handful of these determined GPs talk about what keeps them going.

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.

Global venture investing in cleantech startups fell sharply in the second quarter to a 2½ year low, with $1.6 billion going to 155 startups, according to the Cleantech Group.

Bridgelux, hoping to leapfrog competitors in the LED lighting business, is pioneering a new technology for LED chip making and betting the company on its success. The company that has received $296 million in venture funding took another step toward that goal by announcing a key deal with its new technology partner Toshiba

Trending on peHUB this week: Frank Quattrone, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Chicago Growth Partners, TA Associates,Veronis Suhler Stevenson, Irving Place,VantagePoint Capital Partners and Apollo Global.

Van den Berg joined VantagePoint in 2006 from Venrock Partners and participated in the firm’s cleantech investing. He is a board member at Switch Lighting and Bridgelux, according to his LinkedIn profile

EndPlay, a provider of content management delivered in the cloud, has attracted additional funding from management and existing investors, VantagePoint Capital Partners and Advanced Technology Ventures. This brings total financing for the company to $21.5 million. PRESS RELEASE EndPlay, Inc., a leading SaaS provider of content management, engagement and monetization solutions delivered in the cloud, [...]

SeaChange International said Wednesday that it has agreed to sell its broadcast server and storage business. SeaChange didn’t name the buyer but said a U.S. venture firm led a group of financial investors. MarketWatch reported that  VantagePoint Capital Partners is leading the investor group to buy the business. The new company will be called XOR [...]

We at peHUB have written about emerging biofuels companies on a number of occasions in the past year, chronicling the rush of these still formative companies to the IPO window. Here is a useful “cheat sheet” courtesy of Lux Research on who the ultimate winners and losers could be. The biofuels and biochemical industries are [...]