Venture Capitalist Joining U.S. Dep't of Energy
David Danielson is leaving venture capital firm General Catalyst Partners, in order to join the U.S. Department of Energy, peHUB has learned. Danielson will move to Washington DC to become part of the DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E), a program created by Congress in 2007 to support transformational energy research projects. Kind of like what DARPA does for the Department of Defense, but with a much larger and more collaborative "client" base. Only problem -- and it's a big one -- is that Congress' mandate wasn't coupled with any actual funding. In fact, the Bush Administration didn't even have DOE set up an ARPA-E office. That has finally begun to change under the Obama Administration, with $400 million allocated to ARPA-E as part of the economic stimulus package. Not terribly surprising, given that the program's original architect was new DOE Secretary Steven Chu.
