Venture Capital Ignites U.S. Cleantech Market with Billions in Investment
VC companies like The Baumann Group have set out tailored budgets for 2015 to specifically target start - ups that show huge potential in the cleantech market and are looking for VC's with a successful history in this field.
Toronto, Canada, January 23, 2015 (Newswire.com) - The impact of venture capital in the US cleantech market in 2014 and the previous few years has been nothing short of monumental. Innovation and entrepreneurship of VC-backed firms such as SolarCity, Solar Universe, Sunrun, Sungevity, Enphase and Clean Power Finance have triggered financial investments worth tens of billions of dollars in the US residential solar market, and helped establish solar as a secure asset class for investment.
In absence of much support from venture capitalists, the solar market in the US might have taken another five years to reach its current levels, if it took off at all. Enphase, a successful VC-funded solar hardware company, transformed the installation process for a significant segment of the US residential solar business, and is now posing a challenge to the multi-billion-dollar inverter industry. SolarCity acquired Zep Solar, another solar hardware innovator with VC funding.
VC firms that saw the potential in downstream solar and supported it aggressively include KPCB, DBL Investors, Foundation Capital, Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, NEA, Madrone Capital, RockPort Capital, The Baumann Group, Firelake Capital, Hennessey Capital, Black Coral, Third Point Management, Claremont Creek Ventures, Sand Hill Angels, DFJ, and Tao Ventures.
Tesla has changed the pace of adoption of electric vehicles in the US with outstanding support from institutional VCs that bore the early risk of an electric vehicle upstart building a car factory. VCs such as DBL Investors, Technology Partners, VantagePoint, Valor, DFJ, The Westly Group, Al Wahda Capital Investment, Compass Venture Partners, Riverwood Capital, The Vertical Group and Kite Hill Capital helped keep Tesla on course despite the technological, financial and human resource challenges of building a car company.
In 2014, Opower became the only VC-funded cleantech company to go public on a major stock exchange. Accel Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, NEA and MHS Capital are the key VC investors that backed Opower. Google acquired the VC-funded firm Nest, a thermostat and home energy management company, in 2014 for $3.2 billion. Others are forging towards a public listing in the not too distant future.
