The U.S. Department of Energy is becoming a major venture capital player. The government agency is shooting to dish out -- through loans and grants -- more than $40 billion to companies in the clean technology space. The DOE is looking to fund a wide range of businesses in this space from solar panels to electric cars. In the first three quarters of this year, the department pushed out $13 billion under this model, far ahead of the $2.68 billion that venture capital funds pumped into the sector.

So far, more than 40 companies involved in the auto industry have pursued DOE cash. They have their collective eye on the $25 billion in federal low interest loans that have been allocated to the sector.

No doubt, internet advertising is red hot. Unfortunately, in the case of last week's IPO of Internet Brands (NASDAQ: INET), things were mostly cold. The price range on the offering was $10-$12, but the company was only able to price its deal at $8.

Internet Brands develops and acquires consumer websites, such as in the categories of automotive, travel and home improvement. It has about 45 principal websites, which include properties like CarsDirect.com, FlyerTalk.com, and DoItYourself.com. The network attracted about 26.7 million unique visitors in September.

So, what's the problem? First of all, there is not much synergy among its different categories. After all, can you really cross-sell among automotive and home improvement sites?

Interestingly enough, Internet Brands also recently purchased Jelsoft Enterprises Limited, which develops the vBulletin board platform. Why? I'm really not sure.

What's more, I think it can be tough to manage a large number of diverse sites. Basically, this is something that is better for larger organizations, such as Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO), and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).

Finally, revenues for the first nine months of 2007 actually fell from $65.2 million to $64.9 million. There was also a net loss of $2.4 million.

The lead underwriters on the deal included Thomas Weisel Partners and Jefferies.

You can find the prospectus at the SEC website. Also, if you want to find other recent information on IPOs, then visit DealProfiles.com.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

In light of the mega deals from Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), IBM (NYSE: IBM), and SAP (NYSE: SAP), the buzz is that business software is dead. How can small- and mid-sized players compete?

Well, I think there's still life in the sector. Take a look at the on-demand operators, such as Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) and NetSuite. They are disrupting existing markets – and growing at break-neck speeds.

We are also seeing some new-fangled Web 2.0 players enter the market. Take Huddle.net, which announced a venture capital round of $4 million (the investor is Eden Ventures).

Basically, the company realizes that the MySpace/Facebook generations want a different approach to software. As a result, Huddle.net has a cool system that allows for online workspaces, which even allow for social networking.

True, I know many think that this is a fad. Ironically enough, that's probably good news for Huddle.net. It allows the company to build out its offerings and learn form customer interactions.

In fact, for the past six months, Huddle.net has seen 25% growth in new users per month.

If you want to check out other cool venture capital deals, visit DealProfiles.com.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

The Israeli Cabinet is set to vote today on a radical initiative set forth by Shai Agassi, the demigod-hero of many Israeli entrepreneurs, to revolutionize the Israeli transportation infrastructure. The proposal calls for the creation of "an entire electrically powered system for cars, starting with solar energy, non-polluting electric vehicles and infrastructure to charge the cars -- all without dependence on oil."

Agassi's meteoric rise from the halls of the Israeli-M.I.T., Technion University, to the board rooms of global software conglomerate, SAP (NYSE: SAP), has been an inspirational story to a country chock-full of entrepreneurs. Agassi founded TopTier Software (originally called Quicksoft Development) in Israel in 1992. SAP acquired Agassi's company in April 2001 and Agassi was tapped for responsibility over the strategy of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software leader. Agassi recently left SAP to strike out on his own.

According to the Ha'aretz article, the cabinet's blessing will mean tax breaks, among other positives. Purchase tax on standard gasoline and diesel vehicles is 84%, which will drop to 79% on January 1. For more environmentally friendly hybrids the rate is only 30%, according to the article.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reported that Saudi Arabia is cutting oil output by an additional 158,000 barrels a day, part of a broader campaign by OPEC to shrink inventories and shore up prices.
• Also in the Journal, Delta Air Lines (OTC: DALRQ) said that if it defeats U.S. Airways Group Inc's (NYSE: LCC) hostile takeover it won't rule out possibly merging with another airline.
• The Financial Times Deutschland (subscription required) reported that Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) is in talks with Gazprom over a joint development.

OTHER PAPERS:

• The Economic Times noted that Standard & Poor's raised India's debt rating to investment grade for the first time in 14 years on the strength of record growth and foreign exchange reserves.
• The New York Times wrote that Sony Corporation (NYSE: SNE) profits fell on losses for PlayStation 3 as the company faulted a strategic decision to set the price of PS 3 below the cost of production as a way to bolster market share.
  
• The Investor's Business Daily's "New Issue America" column highlighted Mellanox Technologies, a tech startup that is expected to come public the week of February 5 with an offering price of $12-$14.