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A Cleantech State of the Union

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With October now upon us, data providers are beginning to issue their preliminary analyses of cleantech investment in the third quarter of 2012 that just closed. This quarter, the Clean Energy pipeline service of London’s VBResearch is the first to weigh in, counting cleantech venture capital & private equity investment (excluding buyouts) as approximately $1.7 billion.

Data from other providers, like Dow Jones VentureSource, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, PwC/NVCA MoneyTree, and Cleantech Group will follow in the coming days. No two providers’ numbers will be the same, given differences in how they define cleantech and what exactly they track.

Based on latest quantitative and qualitative data we at Kachan & Co. have access to, here’s our own analysis of the state of the union in the global cleantech market, and why.

Consider the following a snapshot of the current health of the cleantech sector, informed by—but not simply an analysis of—the third quarter numbers.

3Q12 investment is expected to be approximately the same as the one previous. Venture investment in cleantech is going to be down overall this year over last.
The second quarters of the year in cleantech are usually down, if you look at historical data—so a relatively poor 2Q12 was no surprise—but third quarters are historically usually the best quarter of the year for global cleantech investment. Based on deals we’ve seen, we’re expecting about $2b in venture investment in global cleantech in the third quarter of this year once all the data is in, and that sometimes takes a few month after the quarter closes. $2b is not great, as compared to previous years on record, but it’s okay. It’s not as if cleantech investment has halted. Cleantech is still one of the world’s dominant investment themes.

For interest, some of the largest deals of the quarter:

  • $200m to China Auto Rental, efficiency/collaborative consumption, Beijing
  • $136m to Alarm.com, efficiency/smart grid, Virginia
  • $104 to Elevance Renewable Sciences, biochemistry, Illinois
  • $104 to Fiskar Automotive, transportation, Irvine CA
  • $93M to Element Materials Technology, advanced materials, the Netherlands

Venture #s aren’t just down because of natural gas.
Last year, we predicted global venture and investment into cleantech to fall. Not dramatically. But we expected cleantech venture in 2012 to show its first decline following the recovery from the financial crash of 2008. Why? Three big reasons: the lag time of negative investor sentiment towards cleantech that started in 2011, waning policy support for cleantech in the developed world and an overall maturation of the sector that’s making it arguably less dependent on venture capital as corporations take a more significant role.

When you the continued low price of natural gas undermining clean energy innovation and project deployment, it should be no surprise that cleantech metrics are down.

But while the price of natural gas is one of the reasons cleantech is depressed, it doesn’t mean the end of the line for the whole of the space. Natural gas is eroding the compellingness of clean energy, but cleantech is more than just energy. Cleantech, as defined, is much broader, and includes transportation, agriculture and other categories that may actually see benefit from lower natural gas prices.

Plus, there are natural gas innovations that could be key to the success of future renewable energy. Renewable natural gas—gas from non-fossil-based sources—could end up the most important form of renewable energy, because it could be distributed in today’s transmission infrastructure, and help utilities generate baseload renewable power without solar or wind, or expensive renewable energy storage. Kachan & Co. has published a report in conjunction with a gas company that profiles seven firms at the forefront of generating large quantities of pipeline-grade renewable natural gas from biomass, based in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the U.S. and Canada.

With venture down, pay attention to the increasingly important role of corporations in cleantech. Large global multinationals are increasingly participating as clean technology investors, incubators and acquirers. With the largest companies worldwide sitting on trillions in cash, the climate is right for increased corporate multinational M&A, investment in and purchases from cleantech companies. Corporations have become the source of cleantech capital to pay closest attention to going forward.

Investors are worried about returns in cleantech; some are distancing themselves from the sector. Will that leave governments and large corporations to help companies through the valley of commercialization death?
Not all cleantech investments have worked out as planned. Investors are still waiting for their cleantech portfolios to produce expected returns. Why? Many cleantech investments are still sitting in managers’ portfolios waiting for an exit.

The cleantech exit environment is indeed suffering. The North American and European IPO markets remain shut, while public exits are alive and well in China. There were 9 clean technology IPOs raising a total of $1.79 billion in 2Q12, the last quarter for which data is publicly available at this writing, and ALL of them took place in China. We first raised alarms about this trend a couple of years ago. It’s the major area of concern for investors currently. And cleantech mergers and acquisitions are still depressed. Global cleantech M&A activity totaled $16.3 billion in 3Q12, according to VBResearch. That’s a 68% increase on the $9.7 billion in 2Q12 but a 30% decrease on the $23.2 billion recorded in the same period last year.

Of the capital that is being deployed, less of it is going to early stage deals. Venture investment in early stage cleantech rounds fell to a mere $382 million in 3Q12, the lowest quarterly volume since 2009, by today’s Clean Energy pipeline numbers. The large year-on-year decrease was caused by an absence of large solar deals, according to the company.

Limited partners (LPs), the institutions that fund venture capital firms, are less enthusiastic about cleantech today. Why? Mixed returns. The 5-year old CalPERS Clean Energy and Technology Fund, a fund-of-funds-type program, had a net internal rate of return since inception of -10% on $331.7 million invested as of Dec. 31, 2011, the last period for which data is available, according to data obtained by Pensions & Investments. Contrast that with the performance of Riverstone/Carlyle Renewable and Alternative Energy II. While only some $172 million of its $300 million commitment in September 2008 has actually been invested, the pension fund has seen a 12% net IRR from the investment as of Dec. 31, 2011. CalPERS’ $25 million commitment to VantagePoint CleanTech Partners LP, made in 2006, has earned a 12.4% net IRR—again, according to Pensions & Investments.

Most cleantech investors will have heard of Moore’s Law. Now some are learning, if they hadn’t known of it by name previously, of Sturgeon’s Law, that ‘90% of everything is cr*p.’ Which, unfortunately, but clearly, also applies to cleantech investments.

It begs the question: If venture investing is down and large corporations are taking more of a role in fostering cleantech innovation, can they and governments (which we argue should get out of the business of funding cleantech companies) be trusted to support emerging cleantech innovation as it struggles to reach meaningful commercial scale and availability? Increasingly, venture investors are proving reluctant to play this role in cleantech, given the large sums required.

What will propel cleantech’s success.
While much has been written about how global policy support has waned in cleantech, a silver lining is to be found in Japan. Japan’s new feed-in tariffs are among the most impressive the planet has yet seen, even more so than Germany’s former solar support. Japan is showing signs of helping breathe life back into the solar sector in an important way (download this free report that details Japan’s newfound commitment to cleantech.)

Say what you will about the murkiness of the future of clean energy, the fundamental drivers of the wider cleantech market persist. The sheer sizes of the addressable markets many cleantech companies target, and the possibilities for massive associated returns, will continue to spur innovation and support for the sector. Why? The world is still running out of the raw materials it needs. Some countries value their energy independence. More than ever, economies need to do more with less. Oh, and there’s that climate thing.

Cleantech is the future, undeniably. It can’t NOT be. We need to reinvent every major infrastructure system on the planet, from energy to agriculture to water to transportation and more. And we have to live more efficiently to accommodate more people than ever. Large corporations see record opportunity for profits in doing this—and that’s what’s going to be the biggest driver of clean technology, we believe, institutional investment hiccups aside.

Don’t focus too much on quarterly ups and downs.
Finally, note that quarterly numbers are a good leading indicator of transitions. But there’s a danger in reading too much into quarterly figures, and lumpiness of individual quarters, which are easily skewed by large individual deals.

This article was originally published here and was reposted with permission.

 

A former managing director of the Cleantech Group, Dallas Kachan is now managing partner of Kachan & Co., a cleantech research and advisory firm that does business worldwide from San Francisco, Toronto and Vancouver. Kachan & Co. staff have been covering, publishing about and helping propel clean technology since 2006. Kachan & Co. offers cleantech research reports, consulting and other services that help accelerate its clients’ success in clean technology. Details at www.kachan.com.

Look What’s Now Patently Obvious in Cleantech

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Anyone can look up at the sky and make a guess at tomorrow’s weather. But having actual data informs your opinion and makes your guess a little more accurate.

Which is why, as a managing director of a leading cleantech data provider and responsible for the presentation of its quarterly global cleantech data, I developed a real respect for venture investment figures.

Because while everyone’s got an opinion about the health of the cleantech space, as in weather forecasting, data matters.

Venture investment, the rationale goes, is one of the best leading indicators of the health of the cleantech sector. Where venture investment goes, so eventually goes private equity, corporate investment, and—if all goes well—exits, ultimately. Venture investment serves as a sort of proxy for what tech sectors are hot, what geographies are up and coming and is an indication (though not the only one) of which companies and investors to watch.

In presenting this quarterly data, however, I’d always been interested in other data types so as to be able to offer a fuller picture of the overall health of cleantech globally. I’d always wanted insight into patents, specifically. So I’m pleased that Berkeley, Calif.-based IP Checkups, a longtime collaborator, just introduced its CleanTech PatentEdge service—an online searchable database of international patent data.

IP Checkups has performed custom patent searches in cleantech since 2006. It has supported us at Kachan & Co. with data in our cleantech advisory consulting engagements, such as the competitive assessment project abstracted here that leveraged patent data to find companies quietly pursuing ethylene from methane.

And now, with its new service, anyone can access the patent database IP Checkups has built, query 1.5 million patent grant and application entries from the US, EP, WO and JP patent databases and produce attractive charts and tables.

Why do we believe this patent service is a big deal?

  • Cleantech vendors can use this data to learn about competitors
  • Large corporations can find emerging or established companies with strong patent portfolios for strategic partnership and/or acquisition
  • Investors can verify the protection (and defensibility) of their portfolio companies’ IP and potentially find new investment opportunities in cleantech sectors rife with innovation
  • Market research firms can study cleantech patent trends over time, compare technology sectors and research individual companies

Doesn’t patent information want to be free?
With free data available from patent offices, and in a world where digital information is chomping at its virtual bit, why pay for the PatentEdge service? Because it’s not easy to search the multiple free online patent databases around the world and normalize the results you get back. When importing into Excel, you’re limited to pasting 65,000 records at a time, and can only have 1,048,576 rows total (and there are a lot more than 1,048,576 patents in cleantech.) Then you then need to cut the data and develop the charts you seek, and even run the risk of the data being out of date by the time you’re done.

By contrast, PatentEdge pre-sorts patent data in a nice online interface, features analytic tools, monthly updated results and enterprise sharing capabilities.

The relationship between cleantech funding, products and patents
I’d long wondered whether the quarterly velocity of patent filings in cleantech mapped to quarterly venture investment. Could they also be used as a leading indicator of where the industry was heading?

Unfortunately not. There’s a lag in being able to access patent filings because patent offices insert an intentional 18 month delay between filing and publishing so as to give entrepreneurs a head start in commercializing their innovations from the time of filing. As a result, patents only appear in the PatentEdge database a year and a half after they’re filed. But they give insight into where to expect cleantech products, according to IP Checkup President Matt Rappaport.

 

Cleantech investment and patents quarterly

Is there a correlation between venture investment and patent filings? Does one lead the other? Historically, the two are correlated, as these two graphs show, but while an 18-month lag in patent data prevents it being used as a leading indicator of innovation, patent data is a good indicator of where to look for market-ready products. Sources: Cleantech Group and IP Checkups.

Cleantech products, Rappaport notes, generally emerge soon after the 18 month hold period. Cut the patent data by sector or geography, and you suddenly get educated insights about whether a bevvy of new thin film solar offerings are about to emerge from China, say, or what exact types of new biological drop-in biofuel processes from algae you should start to expect to see written about in the press soon. Those are different types of insights than you get from cleantech venture data.

Which sounds like it might help make the business of cleantech market weather forecasting a little more interesting.

CleanTech PatentEdge annual subscriptions begin at $180/month for individual users, and $450/month for 3-5 users. Month-to-month plans, corporate and educational group rates are also available, according to IP Checkups.

This article was originally published here and is reposted by permission.

 

A former managing director of the Cleantech Group, Dallas Kachan is now managing partner of Kachan & Co., a cleantech research and advisory firm that does business worldwide from San Francisco, Toronto and Vancouver. Kachan & Co. staff have been covering, publishing about and helping propel clean technology since 2006. Kachan & Co. offers cleantech research reports, consulting and other services that help accelerate its clients’ success in clean technology. Details at www.kachan.com.

Cleantech Venture Backed M&A Exits? Well, Yes, Sort of . . .

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When people ask me, are investors making money in cleantech, I tell them yes, but not by whom or in what you thought they were.

Most of the analyses of cleantech exits do not differentiate for venture backed companies.  So we conducted our own study.

In the last 10 years, Cleantech.org’s Cleantech Venture Backed M&A Exit Study shows a grand total of 27 venture backed cleantech deals > $50 mm.

All in all, very tough returns.   A number of 8 to 10 figure fortunes made, just laregly not by the investors spending the 9 and 10 figure investments.

19 where we had data on both exit values and venture capital invested, 8 where we had revenue estimates.

We found a 2.78x Median Exit Value Multiple on Venture Capital Invested

– Those exit numbers include the founders and management’s shares, so average returns to investors would be somewhat lower.

We found a 2.2x Median Exit Value Multiple on Revenues.

$13 Billion in total M&A exit value.  Not bad, until you realize that’s over 10 years where cleantech has seen tens of billions in investment, and we used a pretty broad definition of “venture backed”.  To get there we included Toshiba’s Landys+Gyr, Total’s Sunpower, EDP’s Horizon and ABB’s Ventyx deals.  Those are the top 5 deals by value, and represent 60% of the $13 Billion.  None were backed by investors you would normally think of as cleantech venture capital powerhouses (Bayard Capital, Cypress Semiconductor, Zilkha and Goldman Sachs, Vista Energy).  Three of them included prior acquisitions themselves.

Excluding those and looking at only the transactions where we had both valuation and exit data we found and even weaker $3.8 Billion on $1.8 Billion in venture capital, 2.1x.

Most surprising, if you looked at the list of investors in these Nifty 27 exits, you’d have heard of very few of them.  This is truly not your father’s venture capital sector.

The exits have a surprisingly low tech flavor, and were carried by renewable energy project developers, ESCOs, and smart grid, and solar balance of system manufacturers.

If we had limited this to Silicon Valley venture investors in high tech deals, well, you’d have wondered if M&A were a four letter word.

Interesting, isn’t it?  Contact me at dikeman@janecapital.com with any questions or if you’ve got deal data you’d like to see included.

Seven cleantech companies Silicon Valley just learned about

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As a reporter and analyst, I wrote about hundreds of cleantech companies. As a managing director of the Cleantech Group, I spent years listening to hundreds of pitches, coached companies on presenting to institutional investors and helped facilitate cleantech deals around the world. Just last month, I served on a committee at the request of the Canadian consulate in San Francisco to evaluate companies to present at a cleantech investor event.

So I’ve seen a lot of cleantech companies pitch well, and some not so well.

Last week, I had the privilege to help present seven strong cleantech companies actively seeking capital to investors in Palo Alto. And the two-dozen institutional cleantech investment firms in the room liked what they saw.

Read more

Predictions for cleantech in 2011

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It’s December, and time for an annual reading of the green [tech industry] tea leaves. What will the new year have in store for cleantech?

From our standpoint at Kachan & Co., 2011 could be a strong year for the global clean technology sector. Seemingly, the markets have been correcting themselves in 2010; valuations are returning to rational P/E multiples, price signals are emerging again after massive government investment in cleantech, early stage deals seem to be returning, corporate investment is flowing, new funds are being announced everywhere. Outside the U.S., which is having an increasingly hard time supporting the sector, cleantech is alive and well, even in exits… albeit mostly in China.

While we’re calling a positive 2011 for the industry, the largest risk, to cleantech and every sector in 2011, will continue to be the spectre of another global economic slide: another massive economic “stair-step” downwards prompted by the continued and growing mismatch between global energy supply and demand, food supply and demand, ever-increasing debt and trade deficits, currency revaluation or political/military developments. Any one, or combination of these, could result in another 2008-scale financial crisis, or worse.

Yet, if none of the above make themselves felt, 2011 could be a solid year for worldwide cleantech. Here’s why, in our analysis.

Sustained worldwide VC investment in cleantech in 2011
Predictions of cleantech’s death, or bubble, are exaggerated, we believe. Kleiner Perkins may be looking to scale back its cleantech investing. But that doesn’t mean cleantech companies won’t be getting funded, or that the sector is on the downside of a bubble, as some have called it. The big drivers of cleantech remain: resource scarcity and the drive for greater efficiencies, the desire for energy independence, and (dare we say it?) climate change—the latter of which has taken a back seat of late. We predict these drivers—particularly the real or perceived scarcity around oil, rare earth elements and other commodities—will be felt even more acutely in 2011, especially as the Chinese middle class expands, further cementing the demand for and the market validity of clean technologies.

Much media attention was given to a downturn in cleantech investing in the third quarter of this year, in particular North America’s share of it. But doomsayers missed that there was still a fourth quarter in 2010 to report. And that worldwide, cleantech investment hasn’t fared that poorly in 2010. Indeed, as tracked below, 2010 venture investment in cleantech, even simply up to and including 3Q10, has already exceeded that of all of 2009.

Cleantech Investment 2010 YTD

Venture investment in cleantech in 2010, up to and including 3Q10, already exceeded that of all of 2009. The full 2010 total will be at least $1B higher when fully tallied and reported in 2011. That'll make it the second best year on record—hardly a bubble that's burst. Source: Cleantech Group

We believe venture investors will continue to chase opportunities in cleantech in 2011, investing robust amounts from record-level funds raised recently around the planet. Make no mistake: there’s plenty of capital being allocated for cleantech in 2011. Another $500 million has just been announced from the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS). Hony Capital in China is closing in on a new 10 billion RMB ($1.5 billion) fund, and there’s a new €9b ($12.4b) NER300 fund for cleantech in the EU. And that’s just three of dozens announced in the last month.

Yes, there are concerns about exits and long time horizons in cleantech, but the sheer sizes of the addressable markets many cleantech companies target, and the possibilities for massive associated returns, will continue to draw investors to the sector.

Venture capital will continue to cede importance to corporate and non-institutional capital
As important as venture numbers are, they are no longer the single barometer of the state of worldwide cleantech investment. They don’t factor in most angel, project finance, private equity, sovereign and other sources of capital that are now making an impact in cleantech worldwide.

One of the most important sources to watch is corporate venture funding. Look for large companies to invest billions in cleantech in 2011. In recent weeks, Suez Environnement, affiliated with GDF Suez, created a venture capital fund called Blue Orange to invest primarily in waste management. GE invested $200 million+ in a handful of cleantech companies under the auspices of a competition. Corporations continue to form corporate venturing arms, driven not just by returns, but by associated corporate social responsibility (CSR) benefits.

Also anticipate an increase in corporate-led cleantech M&A activity in 2011, which reached record levels in 2010. Expect cash-laden firms to pick off even more leading technologies and concepts, as in recent transactions like Constellation buying CPower, and Sharp’s purchase of Recurrent Energy.

A return to early stage venture investments
We predict a return to early stage venture capital investing in cleantech in 2011. Already, in the last few months of 2010, data shows the pendulum has begun to swing back to early stage deals. In the third quarter of 2010, 46 percent of all cleantech deals worldwide were early stage deals, according to latest data.

Why? Investors are no longer piggybacking on U.S. government grants and loan guarantees, which had skewed investment into more mature cleantech companies. Government stimulus funds earmarked for cleantech by the U.S. and other countries globally are now largely allocated. In 2011, venture investment in cleantech will return to what it does best: seeking out emerging early stage technologies and teams that promise good multiples, and will be less influenced by governments putting large amounts of capital to work themselves. Funds are still being raised. And those funds will need to be invested.

Energy efficiency emerges as the clear rock star of cleantech
Yes, we have a broader definition of energy efficiency than others (see our cleantech taxonomy here). But efficiency—including smart grid, where we expect continued massive investment and corporate activity—really just got underway in 2010, so expect big things in 2011. To wit: GE’s huge announcements, investments and acquisitions in the third quarter of 2010. And just over a month ago, Russia unveiled a massive energy efficiency plan, given that the country apparently wastes as much energy in a year as the French economy consumes.

There were some calendar quarters in 2010 where more venture investment went into solar than efficiency, but in 2011, look for efficiency to become the clear dominant investment theme as investors continue to seek less capital intensive efficiency plays and eschew solar, where company valuations have been swinging wildly in 2010 from continued supply/demand and international subsidy havoc.

Anticipate a Darwinian winnowing of efficiency companies in 2011—partially because of concerns about differentiation, and partly because of the long sales cycles of utilities that are only starting to become appreciated to some startups. There will be failures in 2011 in certain advanced metering companies and other firms engaged in death-by-trials with utilities, and some winners among favorite brands like OPower, EnergyHub, Tendril, Silver Spring, eMeter, AlertMe, Energate. The deep-pocketed stand the best chance of surviving.

Biofuel investment could reach former highs
If economic growth continues in 2011, oil prices will rise, making renewables more cost competitive. And after several years of relatively inexpensive oil, we predict an upswing in biofuels investment in 2011, specifically, that will catch some unaware; investors still smarting from crop-based ethanol and biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol and algal oil disappointments may not see adrop-in biofuels revolution at hand.

The excitement will not be over cellulosic ethanol, which we saw disappear from headlines in 2010. Cellulosic ethanol may even disappear from investors’ portfolios altogether in 2011, if the U.S. EPA lowers its cellulosic ethanol mandates yet again. We believe the recent jump in the share price of Amyris (NASDAQ:AMRS) is representative of a larger awakening to the transportation, storage, energy balance and fungibility benefits of drop-in biofuels, i.e. chemically similar diesel, jet fuel, butanol, bio natural gas and others.

In biofuels in 2011, as elsewhere in cleantech, look for biology to trump chemistry. And for the likes of Amyris, Codexis (NADAQ:CDXS) and Gevo to make more commercial progress than cellulosic companies Range Fuels, Coskata and Mascoma.

Nuclear surprises, but not in U.S.
Expect to hear about more and more nuclear innovation in 2011, as the industry begins cautiously testing new science after decades of relative inactivity. However, don’t expect the U.S. to lead in either the science, the trials or the adoption: watch Asia, Europe and Canada as centers of innovation and where trials of new nuclear tech will be performed in 2011. Companies to watch include Thorenco (new reactor designs based on thorium fuel), Thorium One (thorium fuel for existing reactors, trials scheduled to start in existing reactors in 2011), Kurion (glass encasing of nuclear waste), General Fusion and others. Nuclear development will remain stalled in the U.S. in 2011 in regulatory and public opinion purgatory while the rest of the world passes it by.

Recycling and mining will attract more investment
Rising commodity prices have been quietly making the economics of recycling and recovery of trace materials more commercially viable. Silver almost tripled in price in 2010. Gold doubled. Companies that recover and reprocess materials, such as scrap metal, used lithium batteries or mining tailings, will be companies to watch in 2011. BacTech Mining (CVE:BM), Simbol Materials, Buss & Buss Spezialmetalle, DeMetai Technologies, MBA Polymers and GFL Waste & Recycling (which just got a$100m private equity infusion) are examples of companies that could benefit from commodity prices that will continue to rise in 2011. That’s barring a macro-economic downturn that, like everything else, whacks the price of commodities (gold bugs note: metals are not immune to market gyrations! Gold fell substantially in the 2008 global downturn).

Natural gas emerges to threaten solar and wind for utility renewable power generation
Renewable natural gas? Today it’s fossil-based. But what if chemically identical natural gas (not just messy syngas) could be made inexpensively from practically free feedstock? Such gas, if indistinguishable from petro-based natural gas, could be transported in existing pipelines and sold at a premium to industrial customers like power utilities anxious for a cheaper renewable source than solar and wind. And, if burned in existing IGCC / NGCC plants, such power could be baseload 24/7 renewable energy. Look for scientific innovation in natural gas in 2011, increased political support for it as a transitional “cleaner” fuel, a folding in of it into renewable energy standards and general cleantech industry buzz over it being an important new wagon to hitch to.

China becomes the most important market for cleantech: if you’re not selling in China, you won’t matter
Expect the leading cleantech IPOs of 2011 to continue to be on the Shenzhen and Hong Kong exchanges, as they were in 2010. Central government support of Chinese clean technology companies on Chinese exchanges will continue to give the country’s solar, wind and other vendors advantage in access to capital, growth and, therefore, ability to scale and conquer worldwide.

Kachan & Co. made a case this past August that China had assumed the worldwide leadership position as a cleantech market and supplier. This week, Ernst and Young asserted the same thing. So it’s time to underscore it again: if you’re not selling into China in 2011, you’re missing the biggest market for your clean technology product or service.

in 2011, the leadership of cleantech vendors and service providers will be determined by the extent of their traction in China. It’s the largest and the fastest growing market for clean technologies, and to ignore it out of concern for intellectual property or other costs of doing business will be to watch most of one’s addressable worldwide market disappear to competitors that willshoulder the costs of business in China.

We’d welcome rhetoric in 2011 being less about how countries could or should compete with China’s cleantech leadership, and more focus on how to simply get on with capitalizing on the commercial opportunity that Chinese growth represents. While there’s still a worldwide financial system to profit from.

[Reposted by permission from http://www.kachan.com/cleantech-greentech-predictions-2011-forecast-trends]

A former managing director of the Cleantech Group, Dallas Kachan is now managing partner of Kachan & Co., a cleantech research and advisory firm that does business worldwide from San Francisco, Toronto and Vancouver. Its staff have been covering, publishing about and helping propel clean technology since 2006. Kachan & Co. offers cleantech research reports, consulting and other services that help accelerate its clients’ success in clean technology. Details at www.kachan.com.

A New Cleantech Taxonomy

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Classic definitions of cleantech, and the industries under its umbrella, have gotten long in the tooth. The sector has changed, and taxonomies haven’t kept up.

Why is a clean technology taxonomy important? As a list of nested categories, it shows where a clean technology “fits”. It helps vendors understand their competitive sets. It defines and helps investors understand the breadth of the sector and its sub-categories, and helps research and data organizations report consistently.

So if it’s so important, why haven’t leading cleantech taxonomies kept pace with the sector’s evolution? Because it’s hard. Especially for cleantech data companies like Dow Jones, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, GTM Research, PwC/NVCA MoneyTree, or Cleantech Group. Any edit could mean having to re-tag years of data in difficult-to-change back end systems. And, truth be told, there are usually more profitable things for a data company to do than pay people to sit around and think about what cleantech is, what it’s not and how the industries it spans should be organized.

Ah, but it’s a different story for a fledgling new cleantech research and advisory shop. At our firm, the taxonomy of cleantech is something many of us have been itching to dig into for years. We’ve seen the limitations in today’s taxonomies. And so, the last few months, I and the high profile consulting, analyst and writer colleagues I’ve been lucky to work with in the cleantech research and consulting team at Kachan & Co. have been quietly working on our own take, which I now get to share with you for your feedback.

[Click here to view this post with embedded taxonomy graphics view]

As a new firm, it was an important exercise for us:

  • It gave us a brand new framework for tagging and scheduling current and future research and analysis
  • We were able to rethink what many organizations have been holding up as 11 hallowed categories of cleantech (we think there are only 8 that deserve to be high-level categories. See our detailed classification, below.)
  • We were able to use our collective dozens of years in this sector to make some logical changes that we’d all been wanting to make, e.g. categorizing smart grid as a subset initiative within the larger phenomenon of energy efficiency. Or collecting green building-related materials under a category we call clean industry, recognizing that these materials are used more widely than just in structures for green building.
  • We adopted terms the market has settled on, and did away with outdated terminology
  • We chose not to categorize projects financed. Therefore wind, solar, even aquaculture farms don’t appear here as categories. We intentionally framed this as a taxonomy of technology and business model innovation.
  • It required discipline to remember the exercise was a classification for technologies, i.e. when hardware/software or other systems are involved. It was not a categorization of larger climate change initiatives, for instance… just where tech that’s supposed to get commercialized is involved, and where entrepreneurs and investors hope to make a return.
  • It forced the internal discussion of whether nuclear is a clean technology. While some argue nuclear has no place in cleantech, we opted to include it, as we’ve recently been made aware of nuclear-related innovations being pursued to derive power from non-weaponizable fuels, and other new R&D aimed at cracking that other historical nut of nuclear power: waste. But those are other stories.
  • It forced a focus on cleantech-related innovation. For instance, just because recycling is a category doesn’t mean that everything in the recycling industry is cleantech. Likewise semiconductors. Or hydro. But these areas are ripe for clean technology innovation, and there are new cleantech breakthroughs happening in each there today. Hence their inclusion.

[Click here to download the taxonomy as PowerPoint slides from the Kachan & Co. website]

After years of writing thousands of clean technology articles and reports, our team proposes this categorization as a cleantech category taxonomy. But consider this a ‘crowdsourced’ first draft. We’re interested in industry feedback before calling this done. Weigh in with comments on this same taxonomy posting on OUR site, and we’ll incorporate your best thinking in a final version we’ll publish on our website here a few weeks from this writing. We’ll then start using the final as a framework for other forthcoming cleantech information products, and invite you to use it, too.

(Credit: dozens of others’ frameworks were reviewed in this process, but special acknolwedgement to taxonomies from Cleantech Group, China Greentech Initiative, StrategyEye, Greentech Media, Skipso and Wikipedia, all of which informed our final structure below.)

In outline form, Kachan & Co’s taxonomy of what fits where in cleantech:

  • Renewable energy generation
    • Wind
      • Turbines
      • Components, incl. gearboxes, blades, towers
    • Solar
      • Crystalline silicon
      • Thin film
      • Thermal
      • CSP
        • Thermal
        • PV
      • Organic
      • Nanotech
      • PPA providers
      • Systems
    • Renewable fuels
      • Grain Ethanol
      • Cellulosic Ethanol
      • Biodiesel
      • Biogas
      • Algal-based
      • Biobutanol
      • Hydrogen [when produced from non-fossil sources]
    • Marine
      • Tidal
      • Wave
      • Run-of-river and other new hydro innovations
      • Ocean thermal
    • Biomass
      • Wood
      • Grasses (e.g. miscanthus, switchgrass)
      • Algae, non-fuel
    • Geothermal
      • Hardware & systems
    • Waste-to-energy
      • Waste heat recovery
      • Anaerobic digestion
      • Landfill methane
      • Gasification
      • Plasma torching
    • Nuclear
      • New designs
      • Non-uranium fuels
      • Waste disposal
    • Emerging
      • Osmotic power
      • Kinetic power
      • Others
    • Measurement & analysis
      • Software systems
      • Sensor and other hardware
  • Energy storage
    • Batteries
      • Wet cells (e.g. flow, lead-acid, nickel-cadmium, sodium -sulfur)
      • Dry cells (e.g. zinc-carbon, lithium iron phosphate)
      • Reserve batteries
      • Charging & management
    • Fuel cells
      • PEM
      • DMFC
      • SOFC
      • MCFC
      • Zinc air
    • Thermal storage
      • Molten salt
      • Ice
      • Chilled water
      • Eutectic
    • Flywheels
    • Compressed air
    • Super/ultra capacitors
    • Hydrogen storage
  • Energy efficiency
    • Smart grid
      • Transmission
        • Sensors & quality measurement
        • Distribution automation
        • High voltage DC
        • Superconductors
      • Demand management/response
      • Management
        • Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) & smart meters
        • Monitoring & metering
        • Networking equipment
        • Quality & testing
        • Self repairing technologies
        • Power conservation
        • Power protection
        • Software & data analysis
    • Green building
      • Design
        • Green roofs
      • Building automation
        • Software & data analysis
        • Monitoring, sensors and controllers
        • Metering
        • Networking & communication
      • Lighting
        • Ballasts & controllers
        • Solid state lighting
        • CFLs
      • Systems
        • HVAC
        • Refrigeration
        • Water heating
      • Consulting/facilities management
        • ESCOs
    • Cogeneration
      • Combined heat and power (CHPDH)
    • Electronics & appliances
      • Efficient power supplies
      • Data center virtualization
      • Smart appliances
    • Semiconductors
  • Transportation
    • Vehicles
      • Improved internal combustion
      • Hybrid ICE/electric
      • All electric
      • Rail transport innovation
      • Water transport innovation
      • Components
    • Logistics
      • Fleet management
      • Traffic & route management
      • Lighting & signals
      • Car, bike, equipment sharing systems
      • Parking management systems
    • Fueling/charging infrastructure
      • Vehicle-to-grid (V2G)
      • Plug in hybrids
      • Induction
    • CNG
      • Engine conversion
      • Storage improvement
  • Air & environment
    • Carbon sequestration
      • Carbon capture & storage
        • Geological
        • Ocean
        • Mineral
        • Bio capture, incl. algae
        • Co2 re-use
      • Geoengineering
      • Biochar
      • Forestry/agriculture
    • Carbon trading/offsets
      • Software systems
    • Emissions control
      • Sorbents & scrubbers
      • Biofiltration
      • Cartridge/electronic
      • Catalytic converters
    • Bioremediation
    • Recycling & waste
      • Materials reclamation
      • New sorting technologies
      • Waste treatment
      • Waste management & other services
    • Monitoring & compliance
      • Toxin detection
      • Software systems
      • Sensors & other measurement/testing hardware
  • Clean industry
    • Advanced packaging
      • Packing
      • Containers
    • Design innovation
      • Biomimicry
      • Software
    • Materials innovation
      • Nano
        • Gels
        • Powders
        • Coatings
        • Membranes
      • Bio
        • Biopolymers
        • Biodegradables
        • Catalysts
        • Timber reclamation
      • Glass
        • Chemical
        • Electronic
        • PV
      • Chemical
        • Composites
        • Foils
        • Coatings
      • Structural building material
        • Cement
        • Drywall
        • Windows
      • Ceramics
      • Adhesives
    • Equipment efficiency
      • Efficient motors
      • Heat pumps & exchangers
      • Controls
    • Production
      • Construction/fabrication
      • Resource utilization
      • Process efficiency
      • Toxin/waste minimization
    • Monitoring & compliance
      • Software systems
      • Automation
      • Sensors & other measurement/testing hardware
  • Water
    • Generation
      • Desalination
      • Air-to-water
    • Treatment
      • Filtration
      • Purification
      • Contaminate detection
      • Waste treatment
    • Transmission
      • Mains repair/improvement
    • Efficiency
      • Recycling
      • Smart irrigation
      • Aeroponics/hydroponics
      • Water saving appliances
    • Monitoring & compliance
      • Software systems
      • Sensors & other measurement/testing hardware
  • Agriculture
    • Crop treatment
      • Natural fertilizers
      • Natural pesticides/fungicides
    • Land management
      • Erosion control
      • Sustainable forestry
      • Precision agriculture
      • Soil products/composting
    • Aquaculture
      • Health & yield
      • Waste management
      • Containment

Thoughts on how to improve? Please leave a comment on the official comment thread for this discussion on our site.

A former managing director of the Cleantech Group, Dallas Kachan is now managing partner of Kachan & Co., a cleantech research and advisory firm that does business worldwide from offices in San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver and London. Its staff have been covering, publishing about and helping propel clean technology since 2006. Kachan & Co. offers cleantech research reports, consulting and other services that help accelerate its clients’ success. Details at www.kachan.com.

Content provided by and all rights reserved to CleantechBlog.com. Also check out http://www.cleantech.org

Is Environmentalism Compatible with Capitalism?

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by Richard T. Stuebi

Perhaps the pivotal challenge facing the environmental community is resolving the apparent conflict between the need to reduce emissions and the widely-held desire for continuing economic growth.

This issue came directly to the fore in reading a recent Business Week article entitled “Little Green Lies”, profiling how the green initiatives of Aspen Skiing Company were often bumping into, and in fact prevented by, commercial realities of the business.

I was particularly provoked by the reader comments to the article. One respondent said that the contents of the article did not surprise him because (in his view) reduced consumption is ultimately the only environmental solution, which means reduced travel and reduced skiing, which runs against the profit motive of Aspen Skiing Company. This posting confirmed for another reader that (in his view) environmentalists are inherently anti-capitalism, viewing capitalism as the evil force that has led to climate change and other environmental ills.

To quote Rodney King, “can’t we all get along?” The answer, I think, is yes — and the path for squaring the circle is to note that capitalism is not to be confused with materialism or consumerism.

Capitalism is a social system that provides clear price signals and unfettered ability to undertake transactions, thereby enabling economic actors to make individual profit/utility-maximizing decisions, which in turn promotes efficient allocation of capital, maximizes liberty of citizens and businesses, and facilitates private wealth-creation.

We aspire to free-market capitalism in the United States, and we come pretty close to achieving it, closer than most countries in the world. And, because we are very capitalistic, it is easy to make the leap that American consumerism is inextricably a co-product of capitalism. It is not.

For instance, look at the leaders on the list of The Economist‘s rankings of national economic competitiveness. Sure, the U.S. is well above average. But the top two countries on the list are Denmark and Finland — countries that, unlike the U.S., are not known for their excessive materialism. It is also noteworthy that Denmark is arguably the world leader in actually tackling climate change head-on by minimizing emissions through the mass-adoption of renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Capitalism and environmentalism can be reconciled — theoretically, at least — once energy price signals more accurately reflect their environmental costs. Right now, each unit of fossil fuel burned generates greenhouse gas emissions, which have a societal cost, but the consumer faces no burden in their wallet associated with this societal cost.

It is because energy prices do not currently include their full environmental costs that Aspen Skiing (and other companies) can’t increase their profitability by pursuing as many green initiatives as they would philosophically like to do. If energy prices were to fully reflect all environmental costs, then the capitalist system would be freed to work its magic in motivating capital and behavioral shifts in the economy to significantly reduce emissions.

Alas, here’s the dilemma: many environmentalists have qualms about letting markets work to reduce emissions, and most free-marketer capitalists are leery of policymakers adding environmental externality factors (a euphemism for “taxes”) to energy prices. Unless this bridge can be gapped, we’ve got trouble.

Oh, yes, customers in Denmark and Finland face much higher energy prices (especially for transportation fuels), including much higher energy taxes, than we do here in the U.S. While Danes and Finns don’t perhaps live la vida loca like Americans do, neither do they seem to be collapsing in existential angst or economic depression. The question for us Americans is: do we have the courage to elect leaders that would put us on a deliberate/planned march towards higher energy prices?

A first step for we Americans to make that shift is to better appreciate that reduction of consumption to preserve our planet is not necessarily anti-capitalist, but rather anti-materialism. Because, as the renowned Jared Diamond recently argued in a compelling New York Times oped, it is excessive human consumption of resources that is at the root of continued viability for life on Earth.

Richard T. Stuebi is the BP Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at The Cleveland Foundation, and is also the Founder and President of NextWave Energy, Inc.

Content provided by and all rights reserved to CleantechBlog.com. Also check out http://www.cleantech.org

Australia the untapped market – new report on Australian Cleantech investment activity

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by Nick Bruse

A new report co-authored by the Cleantech Network and Cleantech Ventures will be released today that details the PE & VC investment occuring in Australian cleantech companies.

At the launch breakfast this morning we heard from Jan Dekker (CV) and Anastasia O’Rourke (CN) present the key findings of the study. I’ve summarised some of these below, but you can download the full report from the Cleantech Ventures website.

Key findings

  • A$540m of venture capital dollars invested from 1999-2007
  • 174 rounds in 75 companies
  • Around 3% of total VC invested
  • 66 IPOs between 1974-2006 and 24 in 2005-06 alone

The Cleantech space in Australia is becoming more and more interesting as international and domestic investors are realising that Australian cleantech investment opportunities are relatively untapped, compared with the rest of the world.

Key drivers that are seeing a growth in the sector in Australia are:

  • commodity boom increasing economic activity
  • technology readiness from research institutions
  • environmental pressures including water shortages and climate change impacts
  • increasing policy push as a result of upcoming election
  • strong media interest in the sector
  • increasing capital availability

However there still remains some challenges for Australian Cleantech including:

  • lack of early stage capital
  • more technology transfer to business required from Australian University and Research institutions
  • more corporate venture funds and company investment & engagement required
  • stronger policy particularly around Mandatory Renewable Energy Targets, emissions trading and Kyoto
  • better analyst coverage of listed companies

By way of reference Cleantech Ventures has screened around 450 companies and made 11 investments via its CEGT fund over the last 4 years. In October this year Cleantech Ventures announced it has completed the first close of its new Cleantech Australia Fund.

The fund’s first closing of $50 million is made up of $20 million provided through the Australian government’s Innovation Investment Fund (IIF) program and $30 million from VicSuper, a superannuation fund committed to sustainability.

Article posted from The Cleantech Show

Nick Bruse is runs Strike Consulting, a growth venture consultancy specialising in the cleantech sector and hosts The Cleantech Show, a weekly podcast of interviews with leaders involved in clean technology research, entrepreneurship, commentary and investment.

Content provided by and all rights reserved to CleantechBlog.com. Also check out http://www.cleantech.org

Al Gore opens FEX SIM launch – dedicated cleantech stock market

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by Nick Bruse

Yesturday I had the pleasure of being present when Al Gore opened the new FEX-SIM sustainability and cleantech stock exchange in Sydney. Here’s a wrap up.

The exchange is the creation of Brian Price, whom I interviewed recently on the cleantech show during which we discussed the FEX-SIM in detail. You can listen to the show here if you didn’t catch it earlier.

The launch has been covered in a AAP news article to a degree particularly about the FEX-SIM, if you want a few more details at a glance the FEX website has a press release.

Much of what Mr Gore had to say was about the worlds past experiences and success in dealing with the global problem of chloroflurocarbons (CFCs) and ozone layer depletion, a future where in 25 years we may no longer have an artic sea ice in summer, and the near future and how select countries and companies are showing the way by moving quickly to deal with climate change.

He highlighted that both in Australia and in the US we are seeing significant movement amongst the state legislators and governments in driving emissions reduction targets and signing onto the Kyoto protocol limits at a state and city level. In the US he stated that 600 cities and 12 states are in the process of have done this already. In Australia state governments have moved quickly also to push an emissions trading and reduction goals.

In fact he went so far as to say that activities and the speed of change in industry, investment and policy in Australia may well allow it to regain a leadership position in this issue if it continues on this path.

He highlighted during question time that we do face significant challenges when it comes to issues of nuclear proliferation based around nuclear energy as a solution to climate problems. He highlighted that historically all cases where nuclear material has found its way into weapons program in countries have been found to be associated with nuclear energy programs.

An innocent question was asked by a young 10 year old student, there as a result of winning a school competition, which was “If you were elected to be the president of the united states in 2008, what would you do to deal with climate change.”

Mr Gore’s response was “Bless your heart” with a lot of laughter in the room, followed by, “I’m not running for president… but… if I was in that situation I would look at abolishing employment taxes and instead place taxes on pollution.” He said it was ridiculous that we live in a world where we are happy to penalise employment but not penalise pollution [including emissions]

I had the opportunity to pose a question myself, and asked Mr Gore if over the last year since he was in Australia had he come up with a dinner party ‘Zinger’ response sceptics of climate change, as posed by Andrew Denton in an interview on Enough Rope in September 2006, given we still need to move more quickly.

His response was no he didn’t have the zinger yet to convince climate sceptics but said that the challenge with climate change is “This this change is hard… really hard.. in fact its at the limits of what we as a society can do.” He went on to say that for laggards and sceptics at this stage of the process, we must lead by example, help bring them along, as the world is changing under their feet and its tough.

I’ll leave you with the quote from the end of his presentation, an old African quote, which sums up our future pretty well.

“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together” The problem Al Gore highlighted is that we need to go quickly and far, so we must devote ourselves close to completely to this challenge.

If you want to catch the first 5 mins of his 20 minute presentation you can catch it on the FEX website

Cheers
Nick

Article posted from The Cleantech Show

Nick Bruse is runs Strike Consulting, a growth venture consultancy specialising in the cleantech sector and hosts The Cleantech Show, a weekly podcast of interviews with leaders involved in clean technology research, entrepreneurship, commentary and investment.

Content provided by and all rights reserved to CleantechBlog.com. Also check out http://www.cleantech.org

Booming in Cleantech

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by Nick Bruse

We’ve been hearing a lot about whether or whether not there is a cleantech boom on at the moment. A new report by Topline Strategy Group weighs in with evidence that no boom is occuring in VC investments. An article on red herring’s website summarises the findings from the report, namely:

Only a small fraction of the dollars VCs poured into U.S.-based companies—about $1.3 billion out of a total of $25 billion—went to cleantech investments between April 2006 and March 2007, according to Boston-based consulting firm Topline Strategy Group.

Out of the 3,400 deals examined, about 120 were made in cleantech ventures; in addition, the amount of money invested from quarter to quarter remained flat.

And the numbers show that mainstream firms are still playing catch up. Only three of the top 25 high tech and life science venture capital firms have made three or more investments in cleantech over the last year […] By contrast, clean tech-focused boutique firms topped the list of VC firms with the greatest number of cleantech deals […] all had invested in seven or more cleantechcompanies.

On the other hand in the stock market of late we have seen a surge in the prices of some solar companies recently – see Ann-Marie Flemings earlier article – and last year saw surges in biofuels stocks.

When I was thinking about booms I wanted to explore the idea further of picks and shovels sellers being the big winners in these periods. For those that aren’t familiar with this term, it basically a statement that companies selling picks and shovels achieve this providing the tools that allow the more volatile companies in the space will use to make or break their fortunes.

If we go back to an article I found written prior to the dot com bust it servers as a basis for a discussion on these issues. The intriguing article is by a journalist from Asiaweek magazine back in 2000 before the dot-com bubble burst. He slams the idea that picks and shovels were the winners in the market at the time stating. “If you follow the crowd investing in producers of picks and shovels, you will likely become the owner of property in a ghost town.” If you read through the article no doubt you’ll find some amusement in his predictions – as hindsight usually provides. But I think its worthwhile to consider taking a moment to think back to that era and determine whether its the same sentiment and mood that we are seeing today in the energy space.

In a recent podcast with Tom Konrad from Alt Energy Stocks on the The Cleantech Show we discuss his opinions on what is happening in the cleantech / clean energy sector. From his point of view there’s three drivers that are pushing investment into the sector – climate change awareness, peak oil and energy security. We brought up the issue of Picks and Shovels in the clean energy business during the show and I think we decided that perhaps the areas where thats really going to occur is in the energy efficiency sector, where some of the most crucial yet unsexy technologies exist to make a short term impact on carbon emissions.

Now back in the Internet boom days from my point of view the drivers were mainly consumerism, entertainment and interaction based. I worked for a large telecoms provider at the time and much of the hype was driven by the possibility of a new range of services to business and consumers, and too a great extent driven by companies themselves hoping to sell more ATM switches. Ultimately, the expectations outstripped much of what the technology could provide and unsustainable investment resulted in a crash which collapsed the whole commercial basis on which the boom relied.

The drivers we see now in the cleantech sector i believe are more physical and real in nature that those of the internet boom, having said that we only have to see the effect that each new report on oil or climate change has on the share prices of companies in this sector.

The other aspect that i think we have to be concerned of in this sector is the sources of information driving the belief cycle of what is really going to happen with energy markets. For many people understanding the reality of what is occuring in the main drivers listed before is all too hard. Most people would struggle to digest the stern report or IPCC report in its details . So there is a reliance on the sound bytes of reporting in the media, and from professional analysts on the sector. Or from reading opinions on blogs – an information source that wasn’t around in the dotcom boom.

Ultimately my gut is telling me what we will see is a series of surges and stability as we go through the growing pains of understanding how best to deal with climate change issues in the coming years and hopefully that we get enough scares in the short term to force us to derive alternatives to fill the gap in energy supply when the oil runs out. OR we really will run into a dire state of affairs and its all hands of humanity on deck and those who managed to make a return while the good times lasted have somewhere to spend their money.

Ultimately I think we probably need to spend less time worried about the money we can make, but worry about how our money can make a difference quickly.

Nick Bruse runs Strike Consulting, a growth venture consultancy specialising in the cleantech sector and hosts the cleantech show, a weekly podcast of interviews with leaders involved in clean technology research, entrepreneurship, commentary and investment.

Content provided by and all rights reserved to CleantechBlog.com. Also check out http://www.cleantech.org

Cleantech Venture Capital – Still Rising

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As part of our ongoing series on stories on investment in the cleantech sector, we had a chance to discuss the sector with one of the venture capitalists at Emerald Technology Ventures.

Scott MacDonald is an Investment Director with Emerald Technology Ventures, a global leader in cleantech venture capital. Founded in 2000 under the name SAM Private Equity, Emerald is a pioneer in this rapidly emerging sector and is focused on innovative technologies in energy, materials and water. With offices in Zurich, Switzerland and Montreal, Canada, Emerald manages three venture capital funds and two venture capital portfolio mandates totaling over US$380 million. Scott currently serves as Chairman of RuggedCom and as a Director of Solicore and SoftSwitching Technologies. Prior to joining SAM, Scott held the position of Managing Director at OPG Ventures Inc., the venture capital subsidiary of Ontario Power Generation. Previous to OPG Ventures, Scott worked for ACF Equity, an early-stage venture capital company focused on investing in information technology companies. Scott graduated with a Bachelors degree from McMaster University and an MBA from Dalhousie University. He is a member of the North American Advisory Committee of the CleanTech Venture Network.

I know a bit about the history of SAM and Emerald Technology Ventures, and as one of the oldest cross-border investment groups in the cleantech area, I am very curious to get the Emerald Technology take on a number of issues. So we put to Scott a few thoughts and questions to get their take:

Emerald sponsored the San Francisco GreenVest 2007 conference I am chairing in June, and you are speaking there – can you share a few of your insights on the future of the cleantech area as an investment asset class?

I think we are in the early days but there is certainly an element of notoriety that the sector has attracted over the past 12 months with scientists, politicians and venerable VCs claiming action is required now to save the planet from global warming. A reputable and experienced LP in the venture asset class told me just last week that every generalist fund they speak with mentions an initative in cleantech. I think the great generalist funds will invest in the sector (as you know a few already are) and they will likely be successful. The specialist funds like Emerald will continue to map out and invest in innovating technologies because of our technical expertise and experience. Based on a number of successes exits to date in our first funds (Evergreen, Schmack Biogas, Pemeas), the specialization strategy seems to be working well. A really exciting development is that we are starting to see repeat entrepreneurs. Cleantech entrepreneurs that have successfully exited and are looking to try it again – and we couldn’t be happier. This was a key factor in the growth of the IT sector in the late 80s and 90s.

And can you fill me in a bit on the ins and outs of the recent fund history – the mandates with CDP and Ontario Power, your fund raise last year, and the subsequent MBO to form Emerald?

In 2000, SAM Group (Sustainable Asset Management), a leading asset management company specializing in sustainability investments and headquartered in Zurich, launched SAM Private Equity as its venture capital arm. That same year SAM Private Equity closed the SAM Sustainability Private Equity Fund and the SAM Private Equity Energy Fund with a combined EUR 90 million in commitments from leading institutions and strategic corporations. Both of these first funds are fully invested. In 2004, SAM Private Equity was awarded the portfolio management mandate from la Caisse de Dépot et Placement du Québec (CDP), a large Canadian-based pension fund, to manage its direct energy technology venture capital portfolio. Following the awarding of this mandate, SAM Private Equity increased its North American presence with two former members of the CDP team and established a North American office in Montreal, Quebec. In 2005, SAM Private Equity was awarded its second portfolio management mandate from Ontario Power Generation, a large Canadian electric utility, to manage its direct energy technology venture capital portfolio. To further strengthen its North American investment focus, two members of the former venture capital arm of Ontario Power also joined the team.

In March we announced the final close of our latest cleantech focused venture fund with commitments of EUR 135 million (US$180 million). We are going through a name change but the fund will be renamed Emerald Technology Ventures Fund II. Strong investor demand helped us exceed our original target for the new fund of EUR 100 million. Investors in the new fund are leading investment companies, financial institutions and multinational corporations from around the globe including: GIMV – Belgium, Rabobank – Netherlands, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec – Canada, Axpo Holding – Switzerland, Springbridge Limited (Advised by Consensus Business Group – UK), Credit Suisse – Switzerland, Deere & Company – USA, DSM Venturing – Netherlands, The Dow Chemical Company – USA, KPC Energy Ventures, Inc. – Kuwait, Piper Jaffray Private Capital – USA, Suncor Energy Inc. – Canada, Unilever Corporate Ventures and Volvo Technology Transfer AB – Sweden.

I have to ask, the name change – Sustainable Asset Management was an old brand in the cleantech investment sector, why the name change to Emerald?

Following the buy-out we are a private independent VC manager now and as such can no longer use the SAM brand. The SAM brand is powerful but it also was the source of some market confusion for our venture capital division. It’s clear now that Emerald is an agile and independent global VC manger with in-house expertise in the cleantech sector focused on investing exclusively in the cleantech sector and we have a new fund to do deals.

How many deals have you done from the new fund, how much capital have you employed, and what are you expecting to do over the next 12- 24 months?

We have made three investments out of the new fund and are closing on two more which should be announced within the month. We have only announced two of the investments to date – Vaperma and Identec (details of each is on our web site) www.emerald-ventures.com
I would expect we will invest in about 6 portfolio companies in total this year. We like to invest between US$2 -5 million in the first round depending on the opportunity and the stage. Technology, market and management are what’s important to us – we will consider all stages. Well…if it’s just a conceptual idea on a bar napkin we need to know the entrepreneur has made himself and others very wealthy in the past (preferably us – back to the serial entrepreneur comment).

What’s your passion these days? What technologies are you focused on?

I think there is an incredible opportunity for new technologies to help upgrade the antiquated electricity grids in Europe and North America and to leap frog into the incredible build-out that is going on in countries like India and China. China last year built an average of five 300 megawatt electricity plants a week and energy consumption is expected to continue rising fast as China aims to quadruple the size of its economy by 2020. This means a lot of new grid infrastructure technology will be deployed. We have a number of portfolio companies in the “smart Grid” space and will continue to seek out investments in this space.

You’ve had a couple of recent exits in fuel cells – what fund were they from, and has that changed your appetite for similar technology areas in the future?

We have had recent exits in this area: Pemeas which we sold to BASF and Cellex which we sold to Plug. We still have an number of other FC investments in our portfolio that we are bullish on – Angstrom Power and PolyFuel. I would say we have learned a lot about the general FC market and understand many of the technology challenges and market adoption risks much better. We are still interested in the FC space – I would just say we are a more sophisticated FC investor now.

What does Emerald see as the main differences between investing in cleantech in Europe versus the US?

The topic of an article in itself but quickly: Deal structure, Corporate governance model, Company history (many family business in Europe), labour laws, language, proximity and access to stock exchanges which are more accommodating to VC backed companies (Frankfurt Prime Standard, AIM), valuations (typically more favourable than the US – comparable to Canada where we are also very active). The short answer is lots but both regions provide great opportunity to generate investor returns. Again or investment thesis is based on the fact that unlike IT, cleantech is a global business and as such, investment opportunities are not limited to Silicon Valley or any other specific geography. At Emerald Technology Ventures we have taken a distinctive approach to addressing the challenges associated with technology specialization and geographic diversity. Our approach includes having technically competent people in-house and locating our Partners and Technology Specialists in two of the most important Cleantech markets in the world: North America and Europe.

We have done a lot of writing at Cleantech Blog on topics including ethanol, solar – so I’d like to get your 1 sentence rapid fire take on a couple of always topical cleantech investment debates:
– Thin film vs. Conventional PV – Thin film if you have deep pockets and patience
– Solar concentrators vs. Flat Panel – No comment, yet.
– Cellulosic vs. Corn Ethanol – Science project vs. commodity. I’m a VC…science project always wins.
– Cleantech vs. Greentech – Make great products, build great businesses and provide great returns to investors (and hopefully help out our world along the way) and no one will care what you call it.

Thanks Scott. Especially with those last comments, you’ve provided some good food for thought. The venture capital sector is built around high risk, high reward, and you guys are certainly in the mix. We continue to keep our fingers crossed that cleantech sector can deliver on the rewards side. You can find more on Emerald at www.emerald-ventures.com. And don’t forget to visit GreenVest on June 25 in San Francisco.

Neal Dikeman is a founding partner at Jane Capital Partners LLC, a boutique merchant bank advising strategic investors and startups in cleantech. He is founding contributor of Cleantech Blog, a Contributing Author for Inside Greentech, and a Contributing Editor to Alt Energy Stocks.

Content provided by and all rights reserved to CleantechBlog.com. Also check out http://www.cleantech.org

The Trouble with Water

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Previously posted on Inside Greentech.

There was an active discussion around water at the recent Cleantech Forum in San Francisco. As there always is.

Everyone knows the old joke, applied to just about everything at one time or another, that runs: “hydrogen is the fuel of the future… and always will be,” or “Brazil is the superpower of the future, and always will be.”

Well, I wonder if that applies to water.

Will water always remain the “problem of the future,” and not of the present? Despite the maxim that “water is the next oil,” nobody ever seems to put their money where their mouth is in the water sector.

The basic story goes like this:

  • The water industry is huge, mostly public owned by entities that have no money for the (pick your number of) billions in upgrades needed
  • Population is growing every year
  • Population is increasing most rapidly in driest regions
    Water is cheap, so no one conserves it (think about that statement as an economist and ask yourself if we really have a problem yet)
  • Water is even more important than energy as a “basic right,” so no government will let its population run short.

Therefore, investing in water technology (desalination, membranes, remediation, purification, metering, etc.) to create solutions to the coming problem is a good idea.

But it never happens. The investment community just doesn’t walk the walk when it comes to water. Why is that?

Some thoughts on why:

  • Motivation. The water industry, while huge, is not widely privatized and is very fragmented. It’s not been heavily “technology” driven to date, and has proven to be even more cumbersome than the electric utility market to break new technologies into. Investor owned utilities, which are now a very large portion of the electric and gas utility market, are just a few percentage points of the water market. So very few of the potential customers for technology are big enough and profit driven enough to care.
  • Maturity. The technologies these water companies use is relatively old. Membrane technology used in reverse osmosis and more efficient valves and even smart control systems are not new ideas. And a lot of potential “breakthroughs” have been beat out of the industry already. So unless price radically changes – as in several orders of magnitude, it’s likely that the technology we’ve got is “good enough” or at least hard to beat.
  • Price. Water is cheap (see above). Read: nobody’s bearing any real pain today in most of the industrialized world. I’m not. I don’t even get a water bill. I’ll cut my morning Starbucks before I reduce my water usage. It’s a bigger hit on my pocketbook. In pockets of the market, this may be changing (we do read about water crises in Australia from time to time, ultra clean water needed for semiconductor processes and additional water demand for a particular housing development in Southern California), but it is really hard to get a return on R&D when your customer is measured in “pockets” as opposed to “markets.”
  • Solar, ethanol and carbon. Three years ago, water was the buzz of the venture conferences. Money looked like it might flow. Then the solar and ethanol markets took off, carbon trading got traction and climate change grabbed the headlines and the political mindshare (including mandates, rebates, and subsidies). Water – both the problems and the solutions – fell out of vogue.
  • Size and capital intensity. Like energy projects, water projects are often really big and expensive. Scaling up ALWAYS has more risk than one thinks it does. Like in energy, one just doesn’t invest in a pilot for a new technology lightly. And just because one or two projects with a given technology are running does not a successful launch make. When 30 or 40 are running for 5 to 10 years, then you’ve broken through.

So I guess it remains to be seen if water is the problem of the future – or if it really is the next big thing. And it definitely remains to be seen if anyone can make big money investing in new water technologies and solutions.

Neal Dikeman is a founding partner at Jane Capital Partners LLC, a boutique merchant bank advising strategic investors and startups in cleantech. He is founding contributor of Cleantech Blog and a Contributing Editor to Alt Energy Stocks.

Content provided by and all rights reserved to CleantechBlog.com. Also check out http://www.cleantech.org
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