Venture Capital Firms

Investors Pull Back from Cleantech

Whether it is an angel investor or a big equity investment company, all investors are pulling back when it comes to energy funding. Still, one class of cleantech companies hasn’t lost this privilege of getting the investment that they need. These companies are the ones that merge different trends in information tech.

During this period, the total investments made in cleantech fell 20 % as compared to the same period of last year.

Venture capitalists offered $ 1.6 billion for cleantech startups, down 30 % from $ 2.23 billion for the same period of last year. Also, the industrial and energy sector which includes cleantech are short in angel investors’ funding in the first part of 2012.

All these being said, which are the cleantech firms that resist this trend and secure investments? In general, they are the companies that combine information technology elements, design, social media and big data. The examples are the following:

– Nest Labs, that created a high-end gadget which helps users to save money and energy and got investment from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Google Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Shasta Ventures,

– Clean Power Finance, that has been offered investment from Google Ventures and KPCB and raised $ 31.9 million.

– Sidecar, that raised $ 10 million from Google Ventures and Lightspeed Ventures.

– IO, with $ 90 million of investment.

The general partner at Foundation Capital, Mr. Warren Weiss believes that the energy network can be the largest network in the world. Still, at the present, the basic tech for moving and storing energy is very old.

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