Cilion, which wants to build eight corn-based ethanol plants by 2008, has landed $160 million in funding, one of the biggest clean tech VC investments ever.

Cilion plans the first three plants for California, The Mercury News reports. Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and the grain-processing company Western Milling invested $40 million in the creation of Cilion three months ago.

Cilion’s total investments of $200 million is more than 40 percent of the $484 million in clean tech venture investments in 2005 for California companies. That amount was divided among 110 separate deals and accounted for 30 percent of such investments nationwide.