I spend a lot of time with investors. No secret that people with innovative ideas need capital and I'm always interested in innovative ideas. In a post from last fall that also appeared in the Puget Sound Business Journal, I lamented that VC activity in the NW around cleantech was glacial. That has since changed. Coincidence, or are people actually paying attention to my blog? (Hey, I can dream... ). Here's evidence of positive momentum:

• Equilibrium - OVP alum Dave Chen is definitely someone to watch. His new fund will focus on the NW and clean/green. Growth capital is its focus.
• Ignition - Internal resources have been dedicated. Expect them to focus more on the IT aspects of cleantech given their roots. Also interesting potential with their China JV fund - Qiming.
• Maveron - I mentioned them in my earlier post. One investment in Terrapass.
• Nth Power - Technically a Bay area shop, but because Nancy Floyd is based in Portland, they have deep ties to the area.
  Nancy put money into Propel Biofuels and Imperium.
• OVP - Made an initial investment in M2E Power, a mobile power company that came out of Idaho's national lab.
• Pivotal Investments - A new fund focused on early stage out of Oregon that's already made one investment in SeQuential Biofuels.
• Phoenix - an original investor in Verdiem
• Polaris - they now have someone in Seattle focusing more time on Cleantech. My sense is that they are initially looking for lower technology risk investments in the space.
• Second Ave - Apologies to Pete Higgins for omitting him from my last post on this subject. He was actually one of the earlier NW investors, having put money into ICE Energy.
• Vulcan Capital - Has invested in stirling engine/solar company Infinia, wireless energy controls Ember and Imperium.  

Again, biggest credit goes to our brethren north of the border for being the most proactive. Chrysalix, Yaletown, Kyoto Planet - they have always been ahead of the curve in the region.Even so, some good deals are still passing us by. Local Seattle geothermal start-up AltaRock Energy - funded by Kleiner and Khosla. Verdiem - funded by Kleiner (although Seattle firm Phoenix was an initial backer). Powerit Solutions - funded by @ventures. Come on fellas, we can do better than that. Time to step it up. Who's going to step up and lead funding in V2Green, Brammo, Cooler Planet, PV Powered, Bionavitas and Sokets to name but a few?

There is also a good I-bank in Seattle called Cascadia Capital. Half of their shop is devoted to Cleantech, so if you are a Cleantech entrepreneur with some traction in your business and want a personal shopper, these are your guys. I should probably also mention the NW Energy Angels and the Keiretsu Forum, which are both active as well in the angel stages.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 12:48 pm and is filed under investment, Pacific Northwest, finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.