VENTURE CAPITAL POST

France's two largest petroleum and electric utility firms are vying to develop two 500-megawatt wind projects near Le Treport in France. The French government opened the bidding earlier this year to attract investments of about EUR3.5 billion.

Masdar Clean Energy announced its participation in the USD290-million Jordan Wind Project Company (JWPC), the company's first renewable energy investment outside the United Arab Emirates.

Chinese photovoltaic solar farm operator GoldPoly New Energy Holdings will be purchasing an 80% equity stake in solar farm projects for HKD 100 million or USD 12.9 million.

Namibia Power Corp (NamPower) plans to raise NAD5 billion (USD496 million) to fund the expansion of its transmission networks and power generation over the next five years, according to the firm's managing director.

Valuation results in 3Q13 showed a noticeable increase over 2Q13, including the greatest difference between up and down rounds in over six years. The software industry was especially strong, not only valuation-wise, but also in the number of deals.

The New York governor announced that the state is investing USD225 million in clean tech startups Soraa and Silevo to build two research and development facilities in Buffalo.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is confident that the Model S vehicle would soon be cleared and deemed safe by federal investigators. He isn't expecting a recall and said Tesla engineers are not currently working on any fixes for the vehicles and has instead amended its warranty to cover fire loss in crashes.

REDSHIFT CAPITAL LAUNCHES SOLAR CONGLOMERATE AND ACQUIRES TEVA ENERGY AND SUPERIOR SOLAR

CDC Group said they would be backing New Delhi-based renewable energy developer Green Infra Ltd with a USD 25 million investment to enhance the latter's production capacity.

A report from the Financial News website said private equity companies were now looking for investments in fossil fuels prompted by large discoveries of shale gas in the US.

Investors remain inclined to take markets higher in the absence of anything that would suggest equities should fall. The market seems to have hit a stage where strong data helps and weak data affirms the Fed's intentions to keep policy accommodative, which also helps stocks.

Clean-technology company Therma-Flite recently closed a major funding round with Canadian private equity and venture capital firm XPV Capital. Therma-Flite said it raised USD7.5 million in financing.

The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals were reported on Wednesday including BNP Paribas, Facebook, Crocs, VTB Capital and Flybe Group.

Goldpoly New Energy Holdings Limited entered into a framework agreement with Kunlun Trust Co., Ltd for a joint acquisition of 500MW of solar energy plants in China and Mongolia.

Cisco is expected to report higher quarterly profit for its fiscal first quarter of 2014. The report may uncover any evidence of sales pressure from the U.S. federal government shutdown and weakness in China.