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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...
...according to the research group Clean Edge. Clean energy?related companies raised over $10.3 billion in ipos in 2006, up from $4.3 billion in 2005, and hot new companies such as First Solar, whose stock jumped from $25 to $215 in the past year, are angling to become green Googles. In turn, green venture capital in the U.S. is projected to rise to $18 billion by 2010, according to Nicholas Parker of the research group Cleantech Network. "There are huge problems facing us, and the only way to solve them is through innovation," says Khosla. "That's what venture capital...
Though they couldn't be more different from former dotcom darlings like? Pets.com, clean-tech start-ups were hit hard by the vaporization of venture capital in the wake of the tech and Internet bust of 2000. Funding for green venture capital plunged over the next three years. But it wasn't just flashbacks to that meltdown that initially kept venture capitalists cool on clean tech. Starting up an Internet company required relatively low levels of capital - at least before you started buying your employees massage chairs - and dangled the possibility of a quick and lucrative payoff. Cracking the energy...
...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...
Still, the dotcom bust casts a shadow, with fears that once again too much money is chasing too few good ideas. The drive to go green, so strong today, could rapidly lose momentum if oil prices were to drop significantly, and it hasn't escaped notice that clean tech has yet to produce a bank-breaking success like Netscape, which made Kleiner Perkins a fortune. "Everybody with a dollar thinks they're a clean-tech investor now," says Foundation Capital's Grosser. "A ton of people could lose a lot of money on solar or biofuels." But defenders point...