Top stories in today’s VentureWire:

Art by Mike Lucas

Comerica Bank has been hired to find buyers for the assets of concentrating photovoltaics company GreenVolts, the latest heavily venture-financed solar company to go up for a fire sale, a person familiar with the situation told VentureWire. Investors, who had contributed about $120 million of equity to the company, pulled the plug last month, deciding to not continue their support because of increasingly difficult market conditions, leading GreenVolts to lay off all of its 80-some employees. “We’ve created a lot of value and are trying to see if we can find a good home for the assets,” said Eric Romo, the company’s co-founder.

The venture capital fundraising picture in the U.S. didn’t change in the third quarter as most money continued to flow to a handful of funds. Thirty-seven funds held closings, down from 46 in last year’s third period, but they raised $4.73 billion versus $2.45 billion a year ago, the latest data from Dow Jones LP Source show. Fundraising for the first nine months of the year is running well ahead of last–$17.51 billion versus $12.68 billion–but only a few more funds have had closings–120 compared with 110 a year earlier. (LP Source is a service of VentureWire publisher Dow Jones & Co.)

Also in today’s VentureWire, Solar installation and leasing company SolarCity filed for an initial public offering of up to $201.3 million as it looks to build funds for broad corporate uses, in a bid to bring some good news to a clean-technology sector that has struggled to produce good returns…Pearl.com has raised $26 million in Series B funding led by Crosslink Capital, less than four months after emerging from stealth with a $25 million Series A round. It also hired a chief financial officer, Erik Zech, with public company experience. Pearl.com’s website connects people who have questions to professionals who can answer them…and LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals has agreed to merge with Takeda Pharmaceutical 4502.TO -1.26% in a deal expected to deliver good returns to venture investors, after LigoCyte developed what may become the first vaccine to protect against a type of virus that causes stomach flu.

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