It was inevitable. Cleantech as a category is so gigantic that no one could possibly be an expert in everything. So its gratifying to see the market start to mature and various players start to narrow their focus. This is certainly true in the VC world. XPV Capital, for example, is a firm that is focused exclusively on water. Smart, when you realize that according to Booz Allen, $40 trillion will have to be spent on urban infrastructure over the next 25 years, with much of that headed to water. One Earth Capital is focusing on agriculture and distributed energy. Clean-ag also gets too little attention, so good to see someone raising their hand. Many others are also honing their thesis into one or two areas. But even those areas seem daunting in scope, and I wouldn't be surprised to see further layers being added as focus narrows even more. Media seems to be moving in that direction too - you now see Biofuels Digest and many others. Events as well are starting to diversify and get more specific. I'm personally far less interested in the broader events at this point, which seem to have the usual suspects in attendance and are more about being seen than being heard. Apparently I am not the only one who feels that way. I was recently contacted by a friend who now pretty much passes on the general Cleantech events. He is headed to Concentrated Solar Power Summit US instead. Another new CSP event is also happening in Europe a month later. Makes sense, and there is specialization happening in other areas under the Cleantech umbrella. Why would the CEO of Verdiem, an energy efficiency play involving PC power management (and client), want to go to a conference to hear about biofuels and coal-bed methane? (Rhetorical question).
January 28th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
[...] market is still immature and spans a lot of industries. 'Niche-fication' (as Will put it in his blog) is only starting to occur. Especially in technology markets, niches [...]