Solar took the cake this year, taking in more than $1.4 billion across 84 deals. Biofuels came in second with $976 million across 44. But it’s not as interesting to look at the biggest and most publicized venture deals, as it is to look at the ones that may say something about future trends. So here, based on the full gamut of deals this year, is a list of the top 10 deals that seem to be prescient about the cleantech industry of tomorrow.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":150642,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,enterprise,","session":"C"}']As carbon capture becomes more popular, whether a cap-and-trade system is established in the U.S. or not, and emissions become too costly, companies like Novomer are prepared to reap the benefits. Most of the top-tier sequestration companies plan to bury the emissions underground, or dispose of it some other way. One company, CalStar Products, wants to funnel them into cheaper, greener bricks. But Novomer has one of the most innovative approaches in the mix. And now it has much of the money it needs to scale.
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But now that almost every major utility in the U.S. has plans to roll out millions of meters to their coverage bases, firms are scrambling to get on board companies that these meters will depend on, like the networking and backend service providers. Now that Silver Spring has partnered with AT&T to use its wireless networks for data transfer, there is little standing in the way of it going public. The recent equity providers could be in for a big payday.
Based in Hillsboro, Ore., the company’s fuel cell has a capacity of 5-kilowatts. Even though it does release carbon dioxide, it releases far fewer emissions than power plants that burn natural gas do. It recycles the heat that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere, making it 90 percent efficient. This makes it a viable source of clean energy for home where solar panels simply wouldn’t work. The only hurdle it faces to wide adoption is its price — at $37,500 after rebate, its still slightly more expensive than solar. Further investment in the company could make it price competitive.
Even though things are looking bleak for the legislation that would create a carbon cap-and-trade system in the U.S., many companies are still interested in containing waste to save money and improve their public images. Just look at Wal-Mart making efforts to catalog their products’ footprints throughout their supply chains. If any policies are passed, even on the state level, to enforce emissions reporting, companies like Hara will benefit tremendously — and it looks like its the best funded, most PR savvy one of the bunch.
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Ocean power hasn’t really caught on yet. It’s faced a bout of technical difficulties and lackluster investor interest, but Aquamarine might have figured out how to make it work, rising to the forefront of the industry. Most of its competitors have tried to derive energy from devices that float on the top of deep water. Aquamarine’s Oyster sits underwater in shallower water. This could redefine tidal power, which the Electric Power Research Institute says could provide up to 10 gigawatts to the U.S. — enough to power about 1 million homes.
With SunRun leading the way, this investment could jumpstart the rooftop solar market in the U.S. Already, prices for solar equipment and materials is on the decline. And new innovations are coming out of the woodwork to make residential solar even more price competitive with traditional natural gas and coal sources of energy. If solar can become more affordable, and renewable energy policies like California’s 33 percent mandate speed things along, SunRun could become a massive business with the potential to go public.
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But the move was obviously forward-thinking on the firm’s part, as just three months later, Solyndra has filed to go public, with the odds looking incredibly good. The company is racing to get its new manufacturing facility in Fremont, Calif. up and running in order to meet demand and begin racking up revenue. But the blessing of the DOE has suddenly propelled it into the same ranks as public giant First Solar.
So why is this investment prescient? A lot of people object to money being funneled into greening fossil fuels. There’s always a certain measure of pushback with a clean coal technology gets funding, or when supposedly green leaning venture firms spring to make natural gas technologies more efficient. But the fact of the matter is that fossil fuels — coal, natural gas, etc. — are still the cheapest, most prevalent forms of energy available, and will continue to be regardless of what policies are adopted or projects launched. Making them as eco-friendly as possible is going to be a multi-billion dollar business before they are fully replaced, and Soane is on the right track.
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But Tendril is different. Not only does it have some of the best designed products — sleek like Apple, yet still data intensive — its stellar public relations team has given it enough momentum and brand recognition to clobber the smaller players. Its position has only been strengthened by its partnership with General Electric to interact with its appliances. Sure, Itron may be partnering with OpenPeak, and Silver Spring Networks has acquired similar service GreenBox, but neither of them have made consumer-facing home energy monitoring their core concern. Tendril has, and this focus on what regular people understand and want when it comes to their understanding of energy could make it the strongest man standing following a wave of consolidation, buyouts and the like.
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