Foundation Capital opens $250m clean tech fund

Is all the talk of economic meltdown giving you a bit of a headache? Feeling a bit down from all the misery mongering? Well, put your feet up, Greenbang will get you a bit of news tea accompanied by a venture capital biscuit. Mmm, tastes fund-y.

Today’s economic bright spot comes courtesy of Foundation Capital, which announced it’s closed a funding round of not-to-be-sniffed-at $750 million, which goes by the utilitarian name of Foundation Capital VI.

Of that $750 million, $250 million will go to the company’s clean tech practice, which started in 2003, no less.

You want details? We’ll give you details, from the horse’s mouth.

Foundation Capital has since built a comprehensive portfolio of investments in cleantech sectors including energy efficiency and intelligence, green building materials and industrial processes, food quality and clean water.

Foundation’s cleantech portfolio has celebrated numerous milestones since it started, including the firm’s investment in the demand response and energy management company, EnerNOC, which resulted in one of the cleantech industry’s first initial public offerings (IPO) in May 2007. EnerNOC and another Foundation investment, Silver Spring Networks, which delivers SmartGrid technology to utility providers, were recognized by the World Economic Forum as Technology Pioneers in 2007 and 2008 respectively.

Most recently, Foundation was selected as an Inaugural Partner of the Department of Energy’s Entrepreneur-In-Residence Program, working closely with the Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to help sponsored entrepreneurs bring the most promising of the Lab’s energy technologies to the private sector.