In addition to proximity to key customers Panasonic and Tesla as well as the California electric vehicle market, Straubel said the area provides more space to grow and has a “very business-friendly climate politically and economically.”
Nanotech Energy, another company that deals with battery and clean technology, raised $64 million in Series D funding last year. Since its inception, it had raised $94.9 million in capital as of November.
When it announced plans late last year to build a new manufacturing facility at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada President and CEO Mike Kazmierski said it was the region’s “most significant announcement since Tesla.”
Although the large amounts of funding raised by Redwood Materials and Nanotech Energy can be considered as outliers over the norm, northern Nevada startups did well overall.
“Even without those two, we would still be in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” McArdle said.
The list of startups also goes beyond the battery and cleantech sectors. A financial technology company raised $200 million in Series D funding and the venture funding sector raised $116.5 million.
Other sectors high in the rankings included advanced manufacturing, biotech and medicine, e-commerce and software as a service, or SaaS.