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… a $350M Series B for Project Better Place . At a pre-money of $900M. And bear in mind, this doesn’t include additional financings that have gone into the company’s regional subsidiaries, such as in Israel and Australia. This should really mess up the Q1 cleantech VC tallies when they come out! Because as longtime readers already know, the headlines are driven by dollar totals, not deals. And we’ve already got some head scratching results now to think about as Q4 totals continue to come out. Last week saw the release of the MoneyTree survey (US tally from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Reuters), and the results were a little bit at odds with what we’d seen from other early counts we’ve discussed so far ( here and here ). Dan Primack at PE Hub described the cleantech results as “particularly sluggish” and I’d have to agree. The MoneyTree “cleantech” tally showed 2009 to be way down from 2008, with $1.9B into 185 deals showing a decline of more than 50% in dollars and more than 30% in total deals. In their tracking of first institutional dollar rounds (seed or Series A, mostly), they showed a more than 50% decline in the number of deals in “Industrial/Energy” from 2008 to 2009. Contrast that with tallies like Wesoff’s at GTM , which showed much less of a decline in dollars, and in fact a slight increase in the number of deals, from 2008 to 2009. What happened? It’s tough to say, but here’s my guess as to why such different results are seen. First of all, I don’t blame it on any significant error by any of the analysts — what we’ve found in the past when we’ve seen such different numbers is that it’s about methodology and definitions and not any major goofs. And so one obvious definitional difference is that Wesoff’s tally is global, whereas MoneyTree and ChubbyBrain are both US-focused. Perhaps international financings helped make up some of what looks to have been a significant drop-off in US cleantech venture financings from ‘08 to ‘09. Secondly, there are usually big differences in inclusiveness (ie: what’s a “cleantech” deal, and what’s a “venture capital” deal) between the sectoral specialists and the generalists. Wesoff counted Synthetic Genomics’ $300M multi-year commitment from Exxon, for example, in his tallies. Willing to bet that the MoneyTree tally doesn’t include that one. And then there are always time-based distinctions (timing of dollar flows versus timing of announcement, etc.) that come into play. So those factors might explain the differences. What’s nicely consistent with what we’ve seen before is that the 2009 US quarterly cleantech deal total numbers in the MoneyTree survey generally match up well with the “green” category deal totals in the ChubbyBrain survey. And in the MoneyTree numbers we again see that Q3 2009 was a bit of a blip, it wasn’t that Q4 wasn’t really a weak quarter as has been generally reported, but instead the quarter fit the pattern of a weak 2009 overall. Particularly worrying, however, is that the MoneyTree data suggests early stage financings really fell off, as noted above, from 2008 to 2009. It would be one thing if the 2009 low deal and dollar numbers were mostly driven by delayed follow-on financings, as we’ve talked about before. But to see the early stage financings fall off so much suggests even more underlying weakness, and suggests even more limited dealflow for growth stage investors even if/when things do pick back up again. So far in Q1 we’re seeing a lot more dealflow and dollars, even leaving aside exceptional examples like PBP’s announcement this morning. But with the increasing likelihood of a double-dip in the macro economy, these MoneyTree numbers are pretty sobering.

Green Investor News at Renewable Energy and GreenTech Business and Stock RSS NewsFeed at Investorideas.com. Submit green business news to be read by investors and industry following renewable energy , cleantech and water, or subscribe to our newsfeed to read the … Other solar stocks pending include China based Daqo New Energy Corp, with an announced $108m IPO earlier in January. According to the SEC filing, the company will be trading on the NYSE under trading symbol DQ. …

And especially from China , where progressive policy is paying off with steel in the ground. Solarfun (NASDAQ: SOLF) announced three new contracts this week, worth 12.65 MW. Suntech (NYSE: STP) announced it has sold out of panels through at … Green Chip brings readers the latest news on the most powerful wind play in North America, and why it will bring massive profits to investors when a new California state law demanding hikes in renewable energy production went into …

Toronto-based Morgan Solar , maker of a new type of concentrated solar PV system based on light-guiding optics, has upped its first round financing to $8.2 million from $4.7 million after attracting the dollars of two Canadian venture-capital groups. You’ll recall the first phase of this round when it was announced in October . Spain’s Iberdrola, the world’s largest renewable energy provider, and Nypro Inc., a leader in injection molding and contract manufacturing, were part of that announcement, along with venture-capital firm Turnstone Capital Management LLC. The addition of two Canadian VC groups is encouraging because, well, it’s nice to see Canadians investing in Canadians, but also because it increases the chance that Morgan Solar will remain based out of Canada. “The funds will finance activities through to the commercial release of Morgan Solar’s unique Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) solar panel — the Sun Simba HCPV,” the company said in a statement. “Early manufacturing for testing and certification has started at Morgan Solar’s facility in Toronto. Initial commercial deliveries are expected by the end of the year, with global sales, manufacturing, and delivery capabilities ramping up in 2011.” Tom Rand at VCi Green Fund in Toronto led a Canadian investor consortium that contributed $2.3 million. It wasn’t a problem finding interest, he told me today. “I just reached into my network and within days it was filled up.” Another group took on $1.2 million, but the investors behind it were not disclosed. Rand said he visited a thousand or so booths at the Solar Power International show in Anaheim in October and found Morgan Solar to be the only company offering a non-commodity solar play. “It was the only one that had something significantly different,” he said. “Someone finally asked, why are we using lenses, which is a technology from the last century. We know how to guide light now, so let’s guide light.” Rand added that Morgan Solar has the potential to disrupt the industry on price. “The question is whether they can meet demand” if they can get to that magic price point.

New York-listed solar companies like Suntech and Yingli Green Energy have far outperformed the the US Big Board. For foreign investors, Chinese government’s policy and measures to spur the SMEs have been another huge plus. China is a …

In Green Energy Investing for Beginners, Part I, gave information to guide the choice of green investment vehicles (mutual funds, ETFs, or stocks.) This article is intended to help investors decide how much of their money to put into …

NewNet’s Private Equity and Venture Capital Clean Energy Investor Forum was an exclusive event, attended by over 170 leading decision makers and investors . For more on the Forum, including presentations and multimedia content, …

The “missing link” in many a nation’s scheme to go green is grid connectivity. Globally, hundreds of thousands of miles of new power lines are going to have to be built over the next five or so years to hook up the tens of thousands of … Last week, EnergyTechStocks wrote that to make money in alternative energy , an investor may need a mini-portfolio of Japanese stocks (see To Make $$ in Alternative Energy , US Investors Might Want to Build Their Own Japanese Stock …

Recessionary economies naturally encourage investors to put their money in safe investments such as bonds or cash management funds. Recently, however, European investors have been returning to cleantech stocks. Those promoting energy …