Light-Based Technologies Inc., which is backed by Vancouver-based GreenAngel Energy Corp., has raised $7.5 million. The Series B round was led by VantagePoint Venture Partners and Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital. The money will go to bolstering sales and marketing as well as helping to expand the company’s intellectual property portfolio. GreenAngel is a publicly traded company that invests solely in emerging private green technology companies.

CalPERS, like many LPs, turned hesitant toward venture during the recent global recession. But the pension fund followed more free spending ways just prior to the slowdown, with commitments in 2006, 2007 and 2008 doubling or more. These mid-decade vintage years saw the California Public Employees’ Retirement System — the nation’s largest public pension fund [...]

Global cleantech investing fell in the second quarter as cautious investors favored later rounds and chose smaller energy efficiency deals over big-ticket solar. Venture investors put $1.83 billion into 161 transactions during the three months, down 10% in dollars from last year and 33% from the first quarter of the year, according to data released [...]

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System recently updated the online posting of its venture holdings, and there are several interesting takeaways worth reporting. First, it should be noted that CalPERS, the nation’s largest public pension fund, owns stakes in about 217 venture capital funds, nine percent of its private equity portfolio. Like many pension managers, [...]

If you need more evidence funding green energy and infrastructure companies has become an insular business, look at the top 10 most active U.S.-based cleantech investors for the first quarter. As a group, the 10 most active U.S. VCs funded 47 companies — or 40 percent — of the 118 cleantech companies that received backing [...]

If a cleantech company’s IPO creates the “Netscape moment” John Doerr predicted last fall, it could be the offering of BrightSource Energy Inc. The solar thermal plant developer filed for a $250 million initial offering late Friday with investors VantagePoint Venture Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson set to be big winners if the stock does [...]

The cleantech investor is becoming a more conservative investor. This is the conclusion to draw from the quarterly cleantech investment figures the Cleantech Group released Tuesday. Quarterly investment totals from around the globe rose 13% from last year to $2.57 billion. But deals came to 159, probably the lowest quarterly level since mid-2009. In other [...]

VantagePoint Venture Partners is raising $1 billion to invest globally as cleantech companies seek to expand their operations on a commercial scale, peHUB has learned from a source with direct knowledge of the fund-raising effort.

Greentech Media was the first to report on the fund, but it said the target was $1.5 billion. PeHUB‘s source says the target is, in fact, $1 billion.

The firm in December filed an SEC document about the fund, called VantagePoint CleanTech Partners III LP, but that document did not disclose a target amount.

BrightSource Energy, the developer of large thermal solar plants in the Southwest, raised another $122.5 million as speculation of a 2011 IPO increases. The company is among the current crop of cleantech startups likely to make the biggest splash with an initial public offering. Its technology harnesses the heat of the sun’s rays to boil [...]

Venture-backed Solazyme Inc. has filed to raise $100 million in an initial public offering. Solazyme plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol SZYM. The company’s backers include Lightspeed Venture Partners, The Roda Group, Harris and Harris Group, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Zygote Ventures, CTTV Investments LLC, the venture capital arm of Chevron Technology Ventures LLC, San-Ei Gen, Unilever, Bunge, Braemar Energy Ventures, and Sir Richard Branson via The Roda Group. Morgan Stanley and Goldman, Sachs & Co. are acting as lead underwriters.