With all the money going into gas these days, is it any surprise that companies in the business of making gas alternatives are seeing increased financial interest as well? Mascoma was obviously one of the recent big winners, but the list is long and we can now add Firefly Energy. Firefly recently closed its third round of funding, which brought the company $16m. Firefly has been on our scope for a while, especially with their Oasis Group 31 batteries. The U.S. Army is also interested, to the tune of $5m, in the company's lead acid 3D and 3D2 batteries.

Khosla Ventures, known for its investments in various ethanol start-ups, is one of the new investors in Firefly Energy, as is Infield Capital. The DOE has also given Firefly $3.2m to develop the 3D batteries, according to VentureBeat. For the 2006 scoop on the 3D2 batteries, check out our interview with Firefly Energy co-founder Mil Ovan. And, if you have a few million to throw around, it seems to be the thing to do to fork it over to green auto tech companies. In case you were curious.

[Source: VentureBeat via EV World]

As we mentioned the other day, Firefly Energy is setting out to change the way we think of lead-acid batteries. Mil Ovan, Firefly Energy co-founder, spoke with AutoblogGreen about this new battery technology and what it might mean for PHEVs and EVs.

As for why a company that is initially building batteries for earthmoving and lawn care products, Ovan said name Firefly came about because fireflies produce "perfect light" (that is, without generating any heat). This graphite foam core material the company is using in their new battery technology has the heat dissipation characteristics of diamonds, which are far better than aluminum and copper, Ovan said. A cooler battery lasts longer, he said, and when you think of a firefly, you think of great power to weight ratio. If you're pushing less lead down the road, you're consuming less energy, no?

Read the entire Q&A interview after the jump.