Mariah Power completes round of venture financing

Mariah Power Inc., a Reno company that manufactures wind-power appliances, closed its second round of financing, drawing support from a group of venture capital and angel investment firms in California and Nevada.

Neither the privately held company nor the venture firms disclosed the amount or terms of the financing.

The investment is led by Noventi Ventures, a venture capital fund in Menlo Park, Calif., that specializes in early-stage companies in emerging technology.

Other participants are Big Sky Partners and Greenhouse Capital, venture capital funds headquartered in Sausalito, Calif., and the Sierra Angels, an angel-investment firm at Lake Tahoe.

Mike Hess, president and chief executive officer of Mariah Power, said the additional capital will allow the company to ramp up manufacturing of its Windspire product.

The company said last month that it struck a deal with MasTech Manufacturing to produce the small wind-power system at a factory in Manistee, Mich. About 500 people applied for the initial 41 jobs at the plant, and the companies have said they expect at least 116 jobs will be created in the Michigan factory by 2011.

The new capital also will be used to add staff to Mariah's design team as it develops its second and third product lines, Hess said.

And some of the money will pay salaries of company employees who worked without pay during Mariah's startup phase.

Hess said he struggled to find investment capital in the midst of the deep credit crisis.

"We were lucky and found a forward-thinking venture firm in Noventi who believes in our technology and the wind market," he said.

Other venture firms, he said, either didn't want to make investments in the wind-power market or felt that Mariah's product is too small for industrial applications.

Mariah's Windspire, which is priced at $4,995, is a vertical-axis wind turbine that's designed for residential and small commercial applications. The 30-foot-tall turbine will produce enough power to meet about 25 percent of the needs of a typical home.

Simone Rizzi, the investment manager for Novent Ventures, said the venture firm believes that Mariah's wind turbine represents "a compelling technology that they turned into an excellent product."

She said the venture firm also believes that the Mariah's management group is strong, motivated and skilled.