Good news for shareholders of Toronto-based RuggedCom, one of the world’s leading makers of ruggedized networking gear for the smart grid. Facing a hostile takeover from St. Louis-based Belden Inc., RuggedCom has found a white knight in Siemens Canada Ltd., the Canadian subsidiary of German industrial giant Siemens AG.

Siemens has agreed to purchase RuggedCom for $382 million or $33 a share, compared to the $272.4 million or $22 a share offer from Beldon. It represents a 50% premium on a per-share basis and, quite frankly, Siemens is a better fit for RuggedCom and for keeping innovation in Ontario.

Siemens Canada, which is based in Burlington, Ont., has a strong and growing presence in Canada — about 4,400 employees and $3 billion in annual revenues. It is also pushing hard into the same smart grid space occupied by its main competitor, General Electric. Ontario is shaping up to become a hub of smart grid development in North America, so it makes sense for Siemens and Vaughan, Ont.-based RuggedCom to hook up.

I was the first journalist to write about RuggedCom with a story in the Toronto Star back in July 2006. Since then it has consistently grown revenues and profits, even during the downturn. “Either we’re going to get acquired by a strategic peer or reach a point where we’ve got … a good story to take it to an IPO,” company founder and CEO Marzio Pozzuoli confidently told me when we first spoke nearly six years ago. Pozzuoli, by the way, was a technology manager in GE’s power management operation before deciding to leave the company to found RuggedCom. Such a good move. The successful IPO part came true in 2007, and now the strategic acquisition part is coming true with the Siemens purchase. As Pozzuoli stated today, “We have great respect for Siemens and believe RuggedCom will be well positioned for continued growth and industry leadership under their ownership.”

Could RuggedCom have done it alone? Perhaps — but with the massive clout of Siemens behind it, it can do a heck of a lot better. That’s just how the cleantech space is expected to be over the coming years, as startups with great technology and proven leadership seek the resources and reach of established multinationals. An added benefit to this deal is that it seems to reinforce Siemens’ commitment to Ontario.

FYI: This is a presentation and panel that I participated in in late September at the Evergreen Brick Works Forum on Leadership, Innovation and Sustainability. We were confined to a PechaKucha presentation format, meaning you have to go through 20 slides and spend no more than 20 seconds on each one — i.e. total presentation of just six minutes and 40 seconds. Needless to say, we all felt rushed, but it allowed more time for discussion. You can find the other panels here, as well as video of the keynote presentation from Jeremy Rifkin.

It’s shameless self promotion, I know, but this is how you create awareness of books, and the point of writing Mad Like Tesla was to create awareness of the innovation going on around clean energy and the immense barriers inventors and entrepreneurs face. I also wanted to celebrate those much-needed risk takers in society, without whom we will never have the kind of breakthroughs necessary to tackle our energy demons. It’s part of the reason I write and have maintained this Clean Break blog for the past six years, without financial gain. It’s a labour of love, as time consuming as it often can be.

Mad Like Tesla: Underdog Inventors and Their Relentless Pursuit of Clean Energy was launched this month and has been well-received. The reviews so far have been positive, and awareness of the book is slowly building. But not fast enough. I want to take this moment to ask my readers, many of whom have already purchased the book (thank you!), to help spread the word. Share this link or the Mad Like Tesla website (www.madliketesla.com) on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Refer to it when commenting on the various blogs you might follow. And for my media friends out there — whether in the mainstream press or the blogosphere — please consider a review, or alternatively, I’m happy to chat about the many odd and inspiring stories in this book. Please see press release here.

Thank you all for your ongoing interest and support. BTW: Many have asked, so I’m happy to report that the e-book version of Mad Like Tesla is now available at Amazon.com.

Toronto-based REGEN Energy, which I’ve written about several times on this blog, has raised $5.5 million from NGEN Partners and BDC Venture Capital. The money will be used to expand the North American marketing efforts of the company’s EnviroGrid product, which is a swarm logic platform that can be used to manage the energy demand of equipment in commercial and industrial facilities. Instead of controlling equipment through a centralized command-and-control model, REGEN can attach its EnviroGrid devices to individual pieces of equipment, which function as part of a cooperative decentralized system. The devices, in essence, “talk” to each other like bees in a hive, hence the term “swarm logic”. This decentralized model is less costly and just as — if not more — effective than centralized approaches. This is a classic example of biomimicry, in and fact I mention REGEN’s work in the biomimicry chapter of my new book Mad Like Tesla.

“This is an exciting time for REGEN as we receive follow-on orders from large corporate accounts. We’re excited to increase our channel partners’ revenues by delivering further value-added services to their customers,” said REGEN CEO Tim Angus. The company has had several successful pilot projects with utilities and is now focusing its efforts on the U.S. market, particularly California, where the company just opened up an office. It also has its eyes on the Northeast U.S., where there are plenty of demand-reduction and incentive programs that make this technology an attractive option.

Canadian sites are taking pre-orders for a few more days still, but for my U.S. readers Amazon.com has started shipping my new book Mad Like Tesla: Underdog Inventors and Their Relentless Pursuit of Clean Energy. The book tells the stories of some clean energy entrepreneurs/inventors taking huge risks and thinking outside the box to solve some of the world’s most pressing issues. Each one is at a different level of development but all face similar barriers along their journey. The stories set the stage for discussion about a specific type of clean energy, technology or field of discovery (e.g. fusion, solar, waste-heat recovery, biofuels, energy storage, biomimicry, etc.) supported by some historical context and current-day examples.

Why Mad Like Tesla? That’s explained in the introduction, but in a nutshell Serbian-American engineer Nikola Tesla invented many important technologies in his lifetime. yet he faced constant struggle against naysayers and skeptics who couldn’t, at first, grasp the significance of what he was sharing with the world. Many dismissed Tesla as a mad scientist, and yet his inventions shaped the world largely for the better. So, in my view, if someone today is mad like Tesla, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s quite a good thing, actually — we need more of these people, for the changes necessary in our world will not come from the kind of cautious, incremental steps being taken today.

I have a website for the book in the works, but it won’t be ready until end of August.

Thanks for your support!