Survey: Cleantech VCs Are Bullish on Exits and New Deals
Most U.S. venture capitalists who invest in cleantech don’t believe the nations of world will do enough to slow climate change by 2020, but they are optimistic that the startup companies they finance will lead the way in creating technologies that reduce global warming. Those were two of the takeaways of a recent survey of 41 cleantech investors by Reuters and Venture Capital Journal. (Complete results of the survey are available to VCJ subscribers here.) "It is likely that we will make significant technology, conservation and policy gains globally ... but material CO2 reductions will take an additional decade to register," Don Wood, a managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, wrote in one survey response. Robert Nelsen, co-founder and managing director of Arch Venture Partners, noted that "the world has absolutely no hope of making any substantial impact on global warming without major scientific breakthroughs, almost all which will come from United States’ innovation. China and Europe are doing well developing markets and applications, but we still own the fundamentals.”
