CalCEF to promote clean angels; NEWS DIGEST; California Clean EnergyFund appoints Susan Preston;

The California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF) tapped author Susan Preston to help invest its $30 million fund established three years ago as a result of the PG&E bankruptcy settlement.

Preston is the author of a book to be released soon called "Angel Investing for Entrepreneurs." She's expected to work with CalCEF to explore ways to promote angel investing in clean energy.

VC investments in cleantech rose 78% in 2006 to $2.9 billion, up from $1.6 billion during 2005. But in announcing Preston, CalCEF says that despite an influx of private investment capital aimed at cleantech, seed-stage or angel funding continues to lag, creating a gap in the commercialization of new potentially transformational cleantech technologies. Angels principally invest at this earliest stage, placingsmaller amounts of funds with young companies, thus partially filling the funding gap between initial founder money and later stage venture capital investments.