Wind Off to a Strong Start with $240 Million in VC Funding in Q1

Mercom Capital Group, llc, a global clean energy communications and consulting firm, has released its report on funding and merger and acquisition (M&A) activity for the wind energy sector for the first quarter of 2012.

Venture capital (VC) funding in the first quarter came in strong with $240 million
going into a record number of 12 deals, compared to just $12 million going into
two deals last quarter.

Top VC deals in the first quarter included a $183 million raise by Element Power, a
global project developer, and a $20.2 million raise by ReGen Powertech, a
turnkey solution provider and wind turbine manufacturer. Other top transactions
included an $18.6 million raise by project developer Leap Green Energy, a $10
million raise by Apex Wind Energy, a developer of commercial scale wind
facilities, and a $3.5 million raise by Pentalum, a developer of Wind LiDAR for
remote wind sensing.

The first quarter marked the strongest M&A activity for the wind sector, in
terms of transactions, since Q1 2010  with $872 million in 11 transactions, of which only three transactions had details disclosed. As a technology group, wind
downstream companies had the most deals with four followed by manufacturers,
wind components, service providers and BOS companies.

The top M&A deals were the $850 million acquisition of Seajacks International,
a UK-based offshore Wind Power Service provider, by Marubeni Corporation and
Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, the $12 million acquisition of Fuji
Heavy Industries’ Wind Turbine Generator Business by Hitachi, and the $10.2
million acquisition of a 49.9 percent stake in OWEC Tower, an offshore wind
turbine foundation designer by KV Ventus.

For a complete list of Q1 2012 transactions in the wind sector, visit: http://mercomcapital.com/cleanenergyreports.php