A week after The Cleantech Group painted a rosy picture of private equity and venture capital investment growth for last year, a grayer portrait for the first quarter has emerged from New Energy Finance. Cleantech Group had reported that last year VC/PE investment in clean technology was up 107%, but preliminary figures indicate that in the first quarter, investments were down by more than one-third, from $3.7 billion a year ago to $2.4 billion. New Energy Finance notes, however, that PE and VC had quite different attitudes toward the sector in the quarter that just ended. It found that PE saw a 64% drop in cleantech investments to $878 million, down from $2.5 billion a year earlier, while VC investors increased their clean energy activity by 57% to $1 billion, up from $668 million. New Energy Finance said late-stage VC investments saw a big increase, while once again solar was the sector getting the most attention with $879 million, more than one-third of the total.