Curious where venture capitalists are seeding their green- and clean-tech dollars? Martin LaMonica over at CNET posted a well-researched piece about the scene last week. "Most of the new company creation is rooted in the traditional financial investment centers in Silicon Valley and the Northeast U.S.," he writes. "But the middle of the country is playing a very significant role in bringing more technical innova Curious where venture capitalists are seeding their green- and clean-tech dollars? Martin LaMonica over at CNET posted a well-researched piece about the scene last week.“Most of the new company creation is rooted in the traditional financial investment centers in Silicon Valley and the Northeast U.S.,” he writes. “But the middle of the country is playing a very significant role in bringing more technical innovation to energy.”The companies enjoying the cash influx aren’t just working on IT-oriented wares, of course. Electric-car developers and solar-cell manufacturers, for example, are getting a piece of the pie. Silicon Valley-based entrepenuers were on the receiving end of the most VC money, LaMonica reports. “During the first nine months of 2007, California was home to 68 clean-tech investments, according to the [North American Venture Capital Association]. That’s nearly half the number of all investments made during that period and more than 40 percent of the $1.7 billion total,” he writes.Massachusetts-based green/clean-tech companies received the second highest percentage of VC funding, according to LaMonica, “with 11 deals totaling $292 million.”Third on the list were organizations in Texas, reaping $149 million in VC cash, followed by Washington state. Finally, LaMonica reports, the remainder of the VC cache spread throughout the States, from a Boise State University has “a lab devoted to technology that converts kinetic energy, or motion, into electricity.” “Two cellulosic ethanol companies — Range Fuels and Mascoma — have announced plans to build plants that use wood chips to make ethanol in Georgia and New York,” he adds.LaMonica’s piece has a bit of advice, too, one that many an investor might have heeded prior to the dot-com bust. “As has been demonstrated in the IT and life science arenas, investing in new technologies can be wrought with pitfalls and is not for the inexperienced or the faint of heart,” said Mark Heesen, president of the North American Venture Capital Association in a recent report. “Short-term ‘tourists’ should steer clear.” Ted Samson is a senior analyst at InfoWorld and writer of the Sustainable IT blog. Subscribe to his free weekly Green Tech newsletter. Technology Industry