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None of this would have happened, however, without a spark of venture capital. That came from Martin Tobias of Seattle-based firm Ignition Partners. A restless ex-Microsoft executive, Tobias thought software had maxed out, and by 2004 he was looking for the next big thing. He found it in the emerging clean-tech sector - which encompasses renewable energy, environmental efficiency and water - and discovered the struggling start-up Seattle Biodiesel, which had just been launched by a former airline pilot. Tobias injected badly needed capital, eventually buying 20% of the company and becoming CEO of the renamed Imperium Renewables...
Once the province of those with long hair and short credit lines, today clean tech is a prime target for the smartest - and richest - investors in the world. Green investment by American venture-capital firms reached $2.6 billion in the first three quarters of 2007, the highest level ever recorded and nearly 50% more than the total for the whole of 2006. The European clean-energy sector is already producing winning companies in countries like Germany and Spain, and in rapidly growing China nearly 20% of all venture capital was channeled into clean companies in 2006 - double the percentage...
...alternative energy more competitive, and partly to government action in the U.S. and elsewhere that provided support for clean tech. The Gore-approved narrative of climate change - as both a threat and an economic opportunity - penetrated the venture-capital community. Adam Grosser, a venture capitalist at the Silicon Valley firm Foundation Capital, struggled to convince his partners that they should expand beyond their traditional IT focus into clean tech. "When I first proposed it, my partners scoffed," he says. But Grosser persisted, and today clean tech accounts for 10% of Foundation's portfolio. "This is not a problem that...
...capital in North America and Europe. Investors started knocking on Todaro's door, and they haven't stopped since. "We went from hat in hand to not being able to return investor calls," Todaro says. The company won millions in financing, and has just announced a deal with a firm called Green Earth Fuels to develop 100 million gallons (380 million L) of biodiesel by 2010. Says Richard Kaufman, CEO of the international sustainable investment company Good Energies: "There is just a wall of money out there...
...with the region set to enact even stricter caps on carbon emissions, this head start is unlikely to disappear soon. "Europe is the clear leader in clean tech, from a market side, but also the technology side," says Felix von Schubert, a partner at London-based investment firm Zouk Ventures...