GE and VCs Invest $63M in 10 Cleantechs Through “Ecoimagination Challenge”

Fairfield, CT-based GE (NYSE: GE) and four venture capital partners said today they plan to invest a total of $63 million in 10 cleantech companies developing energy-related concepts in solar, communications and software, and building efficiency.

The funding represents the second phase of a crowd-sourcing challenge, this time focused on “Powering Your Home,” that GE launched in January with four venture capital firms, Emerald Technology Ventures, Foundation Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Rockport Capital. With today’s announcement, the partners funding a $200 million pool for the “GE ecoimagination Challenge” have so far committed to invest $134 million in companies developing advances in home energy and power grid technologies

The recepients include cleantech companies in three Xconomy cities: Boston, San Francisco and San Diego. GE says its challenge has resulted in a total of 22 new commercial partnerships, as well as the acquisition of FMC-Tech, a smart grid technology company in Shannon, Ireland, that was among 12 companies that received funding in the first-round awards announced last year.

The amount of funding invested in individual companies was not disclosed. The companies are:

Ember, Boston, MA (Communications and software)

GMZ Energy, Waltham, MA (solar systems and services; co-investment with KPCB)

Hara, San Mateo, CA (Communications and software; co-investment with KPCB)

Nuventix, Austin, TX (Building efficiency)

On-Ramp Wireless, San Diego, CA (Communications and software)

Project Frog, San Francisco, CA (Building efficiency; co-investment with RockPort Capital)

SunRun, San Francisco, CA (Residential solar systems and services; co-investment with Foundation Capital)

Viridity Energy, Conshohocken, PA (Communications and software)

VPhase, Manchester, UK (Building efficiency)

WiTricity, Watertown, MA (Communications and software)

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.