Clean Tech Isn’t Threatening Enough
Date: 05/01/2009
Company: RockPort Capital
Source: The Business Insider
Despite having plenty of world changing, revolutionary, ideas, clean/green tech startups aren’t threatening enough. This holds back venture capital investment in the space, which hampers acceleration of green/clean technologies.
“Exxon Mobil is not invested in biofuels, because it’s not scared,” said Jeff Andrews, a partner, at Atlas Venturesspeaking in Boston at the NVCA annual meeting, “There are no threats in clean tech, so that hurts exits.”
It’s a simple, but important idea. Alternative energy constituted just 7% of the nation’s energy supply in 2007, according to the EIA. So, solar, wind, geothermal, companies pose no threat to the incumbents like Peabody (BTU), Duke (DUK), or American Electric Power (AEP).