By Tiffany Hsu
The Los Angeles Times
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There aren’t that many clean-tech deals being made in the U.S., but the ones that are making it through just came off a mighty fine quarter.
Electric car manufacturers and support companies especially. The big winner of the quarter was Palo Alto EV infrastructure firm Better Place, which landed $350 million in funding.
The Golden State also dominated, according to analysis of data from Dow Jones VentureSource.
“This might as well be a California report,” said Mark Sogomian, a partner and Los Angeles clean-tech leader at Ernst & Young. “Almost all of the companies are California-based. This just highlights how much activity there is in the state.”
Venture capital investment in clean-tech companies for the second quarter hit $1.5 billion — a 63.8% increase from the same quarter in 2009 and the highest amount since the third quarter of 2008, according to Ernst & Young.