Electric car startup Tesla Motors has raised more than $100 million in funding from Silicon Valley venture firms and has its roots in the Valley’s entrepreneurial culture. So it should come as no surprise that next week, on July 22, the company will open its second store in Menlo Park, Calif. At the location near Stanford University, Tesla will not only sell and service its vehicles, but also carry out the final assembly on them…Read more on Earth2Tech.

The National Association of Venture Capitals released a demographic study today that was pretty anticlimactic. They discovered that venture capitalists in charge of investing money were white (88 percent) and male (86 percent.) But the trade organization was encouraged by the fact that 81 percent of junior venture capitalists (senior associates and associates) were weren’t white, leading to hopes that the VC population overall will become more diverse.
In the meantime, if you’re a member of a minority you’re far more likely to achieve the exalted general partner or managing director status if you have a PhD. Almost a quarter of non-whites and 81 percent of those born outside of the U.S. earned Masters or PhDs, compared with 62 percent of whites and 61 percent of U.S.-born VCs. As a friend of mine put it, if you can walk on water, you’re in. Nice.

Former SAP exec Shai Agassi may have convinced both Israel and Denmark to take a chance on his electric vehicle infrastructure startup, Project Better Place, but getting regions of the sprawling U.S. on board is another story. Agassi tells Earth2Tech in a video interview why he thinks the U.S. is actually a really good fit for his company’s plans. It’s all about those clustered urban centers and the two-car American family. Check it out here.

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Internet video portal and software maker Veoh has raised $30 million from Intel Capital, Adobe Systems Inc. and Gordon Crawford, senior vice president of Capital Research Global Investors, NewTeeVee is reporting, bringing the company’s total funding to just shy of $70 million. The funding for Veoh was just one of the $60 million worth of investments unveiled by Intel Capital; the investment arm of the chip maker also led funding rounds in online security company Accertify, workforce management software maker TOA Technologies, energy efficiency and smart grid company Grid Net, online health video network HealthiNation and Latin America-focused social networking company Vostu, as well as India-based online education company Vriti Infocom and Czech Republic-based online retailer Internet Mall.

Has the long-expected shakeup in the online video industry finally arrived? Video-sharing startup Veoh has blocked visitors from all but 33 countries from accessing its site, a spokesperson confirmed to NewTeeVee today, citing the desire to “re-focus those resources.” She said, “Competition is high in the video space and we want to make sure we’re differentiating ourselves in terms of products and ad platforms to monetize. As a startup we just have to make choices.” To continue reading this story, click over to NewTeeVee.

O’Reilly Media is looking for founders from early-stage startups to attend its OATV Startup Camp, a two-day event that will cover topics such as fundraising, PR and viral marketing, as well as working with investors and a board of directors. It will be held in Sebastopol, Calif. from July 11-13, just prior to the annual hacker gathering, Foo Camp. For more info., including how to apply, go here.

Sun Microsystems will bring its StartupCamp, a free, two-day “unconference” that gathers together founders, entrepreneurs and technologists, to San Francisco’s Moscone Center starting this Sunday, May 4th. The event will feature a keynote from Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz that will include an on-stage interview by our own Om Malik, plus panels on topics ranging from cloud computing to social networks to media launch how-to’s. To register, click here.

The worlds largest conference for entrepreneurs, TiEcon, will be held next month in Santa Clara, Calif., and as a media sponsor, GigaOM is offering its readers an $80 discount off the ticket price. The conference will bring together hundreds of founders, VCs and other entrepreneurs, with speakers including Elon Musk, chairman of Tesla Motors; Clarium Capital’s founder and president, Peter Thiel; and Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of One Laptop Per Child. To register, go here — and be sure to enter the discount code “NETWORK.”

Cox Enterprises is spending $300 million to buy online ad network Adify, as both a hedge against the death of classified ads and a way to delve deeper into Internet advertising. As far as bargains go, this one could be a good one for Adify’s investors, who have plowed $27 million into the do-it-yourself ad network. It’s also an acquisition that gets Cox into targeted Internet advertising beyond its previous partnership with Yahoo, which is limited to offering local news to Yahoo in exchange for placing newspaper help wanted ads on Yahoo’s HotJobs property.

DocStoc, an LA-based start-up that makes sharing and embedding documents simple, has raised $3.25 million in Series B funding from Rustic Canyon Partners. The company had raised an undisclosed amount of money earlier. The funds put the company on somewhat of an even playing field with competitor, Scribd, which has reportedly raised $3.5 million from Redpoint Ventures, and recently announced iPaper. In comparison with Scribd, DocStoc is focusing on sharing of “business and legal documents” that will eventually help the company get into the lucrative corporate market.

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Cleantech startups have been liberally taking cues from the Internet world, like using IP tech to make smarter power grids or leveraging Web 2.0 tools to sell solar. Now the creators of the well-known interactive web technology Flash are building web-based software to measure a home’s energy consumption and ultimately help homeowners reduce their power usage. The one-year-old startup Greenbox was formed by the two co-creators of Flash — Jonathan Gay and Robert Tatsumi — and is backed with an angel round from the former CEO of Macromedia, Rob Burgess, and former Macromedia CFO Betsey Nelson. Earth2Tech has the full story.

After raising $42 million in venture funding to go after the IPTV market with its Smart Wi-Fi technology that enables multimedia streaming, Ruckus Wireless is turning to the enterprise market, perhaps hoping for a sure thing. However, the competition for enterprise WLAN connectivity is fierce, with Cisco, Aruba Networks and others all holding on to that space tightly. Plus, connectivity is a commodity now — the real value is on features that enhance fixed-to-mobile convergence.

The folks behind the web show “Big Shot Live” have hit upon a formula that’s bringing them huge traffic. In fact, it’s worked so well that they’re now planning to spin off “Big Shot Live” as a separate company — and raise some $5 million to $10 million for it. NewTeeVee has the full story.

While “Tesla Motors v. Fisker Automotive” is a juicy story of alleged automotive espionage, Earth2Tech has come across another lawsuit involving the Silicon Valley-based Roadster maker, this time involving the slightly more mundane topic of transmissions. But in this one Tesla is not the plaintiff, but the defendant.

The pay-per-post online information site Helium has raised the ire of some of its authors after proposing a new payment system. The company wants existing writers to rate more articles by requiring that they provide feedback before getting paid, and also seeks to keep writers active by freezing their earnings if they are not active for a period of six months or more. If they’re inactive for 18 months or more, they lose their earnings altogether.

Storwize, one of the many startups tweaking storage for the cloud, netted $19 million in funding yesterday. The round follows a $9 million Series B raised in 2007 and an early round, the value of which was undisclosed. San Jose, Calif.-based Storwize offers real-time compression of data for primary storage. The funding will be used to help the company market its existing products for the network-attached storage market and launch products that will work with storage area networks using Fibre Channel.

This week, four teams from UC Berkeley took home prizes in the Venture Lab Clean Technology Innovation Contest. The winning team developed a small, pencil-sized steel fuel cell that can convert kerosene, a common fuel in developing nations, into electricity for indoor lighting. For a rundown of all the finalists and their technologies, check out Earth2Tech.

Chipmaker SiBeam scored $40 million yesterday and said it would begin production of its 60 GHz chips used to transmit uncompressed HD video wirelessly throughout the house. SiBeam is one of the fabless companies behind the WirelessHD standard that is competing with Wi-Fi and Ultra-Wideband to push wireless high definition video transfer. If all goes well in production, SiBeam chips will be available in consumer devices for this year’s holiday season.

In December, Om reviewed the Dash Express Internet-connected navigation device. Commenters agreed that it looked great, but at $600 plus a monthly service fee, was too pricey. Maybe Dash listened, because the product is now available (plus the fees) for $399.99 at Amazon.com.

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Voice and mobile phones go together like ice cream and cake, so it’s no surprise to see that BubbleMotion has scored $14 million in second-round funding for its voice-to-text-message voice SMS service for carriers. It’s one of several players racing to deliver services that bypass the mobile keyboard to make everything — from finding a restaurant to sending a text message — easier. The service drives up text message use revenue for carriers, but BubbleMotion still has to educate the market on its services still playing in a crowded market.

Screens, from your massive HDTV to your iPhone, are increasingly filling our lives with an omnipresent glow. And VCs are increasingly funding the companies behind the technology that promises to not only help screens get better and brighter but more energy efficient. LED maker Luminus says it has raised a whopping $72 million for its PhlatLight LED products, which are primarily used for flat-panel displays, while Dutch display maker Liquavista said it’s raised $12.6 million in a Series B round. Earth2Tech has the full story.

Fueled by the purchase of Club Penguin and other success stories, the market for virtual worlds designed for children/teens keeps booming. Om just passed me word that Trinity Ventures is investing in Fluid Entertainment, a Mill Valley, Calif.-based developer now working on a “green kids world” with ecological themes. (Alert to Katie!) For Trinity, this adds another game property to a venture funding roster that includes casual/women-oriented game developer Play First.

T-Mobile International, which is currently using Wi-Fi for its convergence offering in the U.S., has disclosed an investment in Ubiquisys, a maker of femtocells. T-Mobile also said it was trialling the startup’s femtocells in Europe. Femtocells, which plug into an existing broadband connection to provide a signal in places where mobile network coverage is poor, are getting their day in the sun. Google, Accel Partners and Advent Ventures are also investors in Ubiquisys, which has raised $37 million.

In a deal that highlights the fledgling consolidation in the social software space, Mzinga has taken Prospero Technologies as its lawful acquisition, along with $27.5 million in venture funding. Unfortunately the couple keeps the Mzinga name, which will be slapped on Mzinga’s efforts in external and internal corporate social networks. Mzinga focuses on building branded social sites within corporations, while 11-year-old Prospero focused on external sites for media players such as BusinessWeek, BabyCenter and iVillage. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.

As the lines etched on chips get smaller (Moore’s Law again), some, among them Intel and Qualcomm, believe that limiting the way those lines can be drawn will lead to cheaper manufacturing. Instead of etching lines onto chips that resemble jigsaw puzzles, think Tetris-style blocks. Intel said today it has invested in Campbell, Calif.-based startup Tela Innovations, which is pushing a block-style lithography that seems to limit certain manufacturing costs as chips get below the 45-nanometer mark.

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New York-based startup Outbrain has raised $5 million in a Series A funding from Gemini Israel Funds, Lightsteed Venture Partners and Glen Rock Israel. The company, headed by Yaron Galai, co-founder of Quigo (sold to AOL), provides ratings and recommendations for web content — including blogs. How they are going to make money off their business is not evident at this time. Allen Stern says that sponsored recommendations are one way for them to make money. Gemini Israel Fund’ Daniel Cohen has his take on the investment.

Megamillion-dollar rounds of funding for ad networks show that investors, despite the likelihood of a recession, continue to be dazzled by the glamor of online advertising. Glam raised $85 million (giving it a valuation of $500 million) and London-based Adconion raised $80 million. Their mega-valuations suggest that initial public offerings might be the only exit options for these two liberally funded players. Full details at Venture Beat.

ONESite, a profitable white-label social networking platform, purchased Social Platform in what Social Platform CEO Eric Schlissel calls the beginning of the end for the more than 30 players making such software. “I think a lot of companies will go out of business and will consolidate along a few key players,” Schlissel said. Terms were undisclosed, but with ONESite making $5 million last year as a dominant player, and Schlissel starting Social Platform on a $10,000 personal investment, we’re thinking scratch-off winnings rather than MegaMillions.

Tesla is starting to get serious about its second line of cars with an electric sedan code-named White Star. To help get it to market, Silicon Valley’s electric car company is also planning an IPO, which it tells Earth2Tech is likely to happen in 2009.

While the vast majority of U.S. wind generation comes from massive utility wind farms planted across stretches of our nation’s wind-blessed land, a few startups are beginning to offer smaller scale, lower-cost turbines that can fit into more compact spaces and are geared at a less commercial type of customer. Earth2Tech looks at four of them.

Michael Robertson, the founder of Mp3.com and Linspire, is hoping to take the proverbial wisdom of crowds and use it for a deal wiki called…wait for it…Dealipedia. It looks like a TMZ for the Wall Street Journal set — without the fun pictures. Instead it uses filings, press releases and (this is the sexy bit) anonymous tips from users to determine who paid what for companies and how much founders made. Any enterprising lawyer (or reporter) could probably flip through the details on unreported deals and glean who the loose lips are. Happy hunting.

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Early next month, 15 web startups from Israel will spend a week touring Silicon Valley, meeting with investors, strategic partners, customers, entrepreneurs and industry leaders. The startups, among them PLYMedia, which overlays web video with additional meta data, will present to the industry on Wed., Feb 6, at Microsoft’s Mountain View campus. For a $25 discount off tickets, go here and when prompted, enter code IWT2008.

Tesla’s pulling out all the stops to get its much-awaited Roadster on the market. In its latest move, the electric car startup said today that it’s ditching the planned two-speed transmission and will to use a modified one-speed transmission instead. Earth2Tech has the full story.

Fifth Generation Systems, owner of drag-and-drop web page customization technology provider Zude, has raised an additional $5.3 million in a second round of venture capital. It also added Dan Bricklin, a computer science superstar and co-creator of spreadsheet software VisiCalc, to its board. Perhaps that money and Bricklin’s talents will go toward perfecting Zude’s difficult user interface.

Jive Software, a Portland, Ore.-based collaboration software startup, has raised $15 million in funding from Sequoia Capital. Jim Goetz is the Sequoia partner leading the investment in the company, which has been profitable since it was launched in 2001. The new money will be used to push sales and marketing of its Clearspace line-up of products.