Energy

Upside Energy, the operator of a cloud energy management system, has raised $7.4m in a series A round co-led by Legal & General Capital.

Mitsui has joined Idinvest Partners and European Investment Bank for a $65.4m round for smart battery system producer Forsee Power.

The off-grid solar power and appliance provider secured funding in a series B round backed by Shell and existing investor Novastar Ventures.

Insurance group Harel was among the investors in a round for Ecoppia, which has created an automated cleaning system for solar panels.

The customer relationship management software producer launched four specialist funds with $250m of capital and scored big on the IPO exit front.

Tencent added huge private equity deals to investments in the likes of Meituan-Dianping, Go-Jek and Flipkart before a run of huge IPOs late in the year.

The battery technology developer, which has now raised $87m in total, counts General Motors, SAIC Motor and Applied Materials among its past investors.

The Google owner committed big money to Lyft and Airbnb as GV increased its late-stage deals, formed an AI fund called Gradient and exited from Snap and Cloudera in IPOs.

The telecommunications group raised almost $98bn for its Vision Fund and dominated the tech VC space in 2017.