The Boston cleantech community is heating up

We'll have to wait on the deal-tracking numbers to be sure, but it certainly feels like the Boston-area cleantech community is getting a lot more active these days.

Many of the leading local VC firms are taking an interest and getting involved through great efforts like NEEIC, and beyond the VC/ entrepreneur end of the market there's been an increase in regional efforts to build a stronger overall "clean energy community". And of course, there's the world-class research being done at the various local universities and other research centers...

Last night's REBN-East event was another good example -- a new high for attendance, and perhaps most impressive was the number of venture investors that were able to come out. Thanks again to Flagship Ventures for kindly sponsoring the event (Dan Primack also mentioned the event on PE Week Wire today -- read his take, and his interesting commentary on the current state of the cleantech sector here). [7/21 update: Wade Roush at Xconomy also had a nice write-up worth checking out here]

Cleantech and related deals:

• Eka Systems, a wireless mesh AMR developer, raised a round of financing (PEWW reports it as a $12.5mm Series C), led by Angeleno Group and RockPort, with participation from existing non-institutional investors. We've discussed the cleantech applications of AMR here before.

• As also reported in PEWW, GreenDimes, which works to reduce postal junk mail, has raised a $20.5mm Series A led by Tudor Investment Corporation. The company claims to have stopped over a million pounds of junk mail to date.

• They fit into the overall "energy resources are becoming scarce" investment thesis, but are they cleantech? Readers are invited to draw their own judgments on that question (comments are always welcomed), but here are two deals that are certainly worth noting regardless of how they're classified: DynaPump earlier this week raised a $12mm Series C led by Element and including NGP Energy Technology Partners and existing investor CTTV Investments (Chevron's tech venture arm)... And thanks to Ben Kuo for bringing to my attention that Kleiner Perkins has apparently invested in GloriOil... Both DynaPump and GloriOil have technologies for enhancing oil recovery from existing oil wells.

Cleantech investors in the news: A provocative column by Yaletown Venture Partner's Kirk Washington... And Kleiner gives out their first awards for "Greentech Policy Innovators" (congrats to Bob Epstein and Professor Jose Goldemberg).

Other news and notes: Battery and fuel cell market growth is driving an increase in demand for core materials... A hot topic of conversation is the intriguing controversy over Planktos... What's in the box?... Finally, theoretical economics rarely intersects with venture capital, but for those of us who unfortunately trained in the subject here's a fun clip to watch over the weekend: