Mercom Capital Group Reports Second Quarter 2011 Funding and M&A Activity for Smart Grid

AUSTIN, TX--(Marketwire - Jul 13, 2011) - Mercom Capital Group llc, a global clean energy communications and consulting firm, today released funding and merger and acquisition (M&A) activity for the Smart Grid sector for the second quarter of 2011.

Smart Grid venture capital (VC) funding in Q2 2011 came in at $104M in 15 deals, compared to $76M in 13 deals in Q1 of 2011. Thirty-one different investors participated in these funding rounds.

"The first half of 2010 saw almost $400M in VC funding compared to just $180M in the first half of this year. The second quarter was a blockbuster M&A quarter with $4.3 billion in M&A activity for nine transactions. This totals more than all M&A transactions combined since Q1 of 2010," commented Raj Prabhu, Managing Partner at Mercom Capital Group.

The top five VC transactions were led by iControl Networks' raise of $50M, which accounted for almost half of all VC funding in Q2. That was followed by JouleX who raised $17M, Chetas Control Systems with $13.5M, On-Ramp Wireless with $11.5M and Panoramic Power with $4.5M.

M&A activity in the Smart Grid sector amounted to a whopping $4.3 billion in nine transactions compared to $300M in Q1 of 2011. The most significant M&A transactions were Toshiba Corporation's acquisition of Landis+Gyr for $2.3B and Schneider Electric's acquisition of Telvent for $2 billion.

Another significant transaction this quarter was the $675M in debt raised by Sensus.

For a complete list of Q2 2011 transactions in the smart grid sector, visit: http://mercomcapital.com/news.php

About Mercom Capital Group
Mercom Capital Group is a global clean energy communications and consulting firm. Mercom's communications division helps clean energy companies build powerful relationships with media, analysts, government decision-makers, local communities and strategic partners. Mercom's consulting division advises clean energy companies on new market entry, custom market intelligence and overall strategic decision-making. Mercom delivers highly respected industry market intelligence reports covering Solar Energy, Wind Energy and Smart Grid. Our reports provide timely industry happenings and ahead-of-the-curve analysis specifically for C-level decision making. For more information about Mercom Capital Group, visit: http://www.mercomcapital.com. To get a copy of Mercom's popular market intelligence reports, visit: http://mercomcapital.com/market_intelligence.php.