2010 Cleantech Investment Update

Global Clean Technology venture investment increased 65% during the first half of 2010.  Over 2 billion dollars (USD) were invested in 140 Cleantech companies in North America, Europe, China and India during Q2 2010 alone.  This amount was similar to the previous quarter and was up 43% from the same period 12 months previous.  The number of Q2 deals were down from the record high of 192 in Q1 2010, but still represented a strong quarter historically.  The primary benefactors of the investment were solar related companies, and a high volume of follow-on rounds across both solar and other technologies.  These results were somewhat tempered by the IPO withdrawls of Solyndra and Goldwind, among others.  There is no doubt that the Cleantech IPO market remains unpredictable, including counting for Tesla's against type good news.

Another trend is the increase in corporate activity around Cleantech innovation, which helps play an important role in maintaining the levels of investment activity. Corporations are becoming key participants in many of the largest venture and growth capital investment rounds. Strong corporate involvement was evident again in the quarter’s top ten deals: Intel Capital, GE Capital, Shell, Votorantim (Brazilian conglomerate), Alstom (French power and rail infrastructure company) and Cargill Ventures all contributed.  Their activity levels are a key indicator of the health and growth of the broader market for Cleantech products.

Corporate indicators of operational Cleantech involvement include major U.S. utilities increasing direct investments in wind and solar due to improving cost scenarios, favorable tax credits and incentives, and evolving pressure to meet Renewable Portfolio Standards. As well, large global companies are seeing the business case for operational Cleantech integration, leading to record corporate investment. These companies are looking to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions in order to reduce operational costs, mitigate energy price volatility risk, drive sustainable growth, and comply with existing and pending regulations around carbon and climate change risk disclosure.

Venture Investment by Technology Sector:

The leading sector in the quarter by amount invested was solar ($811 million), followed by biofuels ($302 million) and smart grid ($256 million). Energy efficiency was the most popular sector measured by number of deals, with 31 funding rounds, ahead of solar (26 deals) and biofuels (13 deals).

Venture Investment by World Region:

North America accounted for 72% of the total, while Europe and Israel accounted for 24%, India 3%, and China 2%.

So, what does it all mean?  One conclusion is that the many SaaS/On-demand based carbon emmission managmenet start-ups like Hara and Carbonetworks (now ENXSuite) are in position to help large global corporations manage greenhouse gas emissions as well as energy, water, and waste.  Corporations will continue to actively look for innovative energy and resource management tools. 

Another conclusion is to use the data to avoid jumping on the China Is Leading The Innovation Way bandwagon.  While China is certainly moving into the Cleantech product creation business - and that move will only grow - the numbers tell the tale: 72% Cleantech venture investment in North America, 2% in China.

Source: Cleantech Group LLC

Crowdsourcing Innovation? Why Not!

Why is it that many great business ideas remain un-utilized? 

One reason is that company managers rarely ask people to come up with great ideas. Instead, companies, and the people that manage them, share a tendency to keep problems to themselves.  Many great ideas never see the light of day simply because organizations don’t ask for help from the very people that are often best able to offer help: their own employees.

While not new, there is a growing effort by companies to use processes and tools that harvest the smart ideas lying dormant among their own employees.  Some call this Intra-organizational Innovation Crowdsourcing.  Or, crowdsourcing within the company that taps into its employees to uncover the smart ideas. 

Crowdsourcing itself, described as the act of outsourcing tasks to a large group of people or community through an open call is well documented. Its uses include tapping the wisdom of the crowd for new technology development, design, or the capture and analysis of large amounts of data.  It is typically enabled through the use of Web 2.0 technologies.

Intra-organizational Innovation Crowdsourcing, or IIC, focuses on encouraging the participation of a company's employees toward contributing great ideas that normally would have remained uncovered.  How are companies using IIC?  Here are just a few examples:

• A California-based solar company runs multiple employee contests annually, each with a $500 prize, for smart ideas. Employees are also rated, and compensated, on innovation in their annual reviews
• A research company involves its employees in a contest titled 100 Days of Innovation; employees are urged to come up with a total of 100 innovative ideas by year's end in order to each receive a monetary reward
• A software company holds a new product naming contest open to all of its employees across all functions, not simply marketing or sales, with the best three submissions winning a monetary reward and the knowledge company-wide that the company's product name originated from employee X
• Daimler’s Open Innovation Network allows the manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz to creatively engage with its own employees to harvest creative ideas that lead to new products, services or technologies

And, what of government?  Yes, even historically un-creative government organizations are getting into the act:

• The U.S. Veterans Administration (VA) introduced its flagship VA Innovation Initiative to create an ongoing competition among its employees for the submission of smart ideas.  Examples of VA employee innovation include 45,000 employees submitting 6,500 ideas to improve health IT systems; and 7,000 employees submitting 3,000 ideas on how to improve benefit claims processing

Intra-organizational Innovation Crowdsourcing's time has come.

Is Water the New Oil?

Is water the new oil?  Maybe... a strong maybe.  There is a growing belief by many that water is fast becoming the kind of precious commodity that oil became in the 20th century.  Consider these statistics:

• People can live as much as 30 days without food but only seven without water
• A billion people lack access to clean water
• 2.5 billion people are without water for sanitation
• 80% of all disease is borne by dirty water

Ironically, when seen from space, earth appears literally as a blue planet, covered by water.  However, the vast majority of that blue is salty or dirty.  Humans need fresh and clean water.

So, is clean water decreasing?  The answer according to environmentalists, is YES.  The cause, not surprisingly, is the intersection of a growing human population and a warming world.

According to Jonathan Greenblatt, a professor at UCLA who advised the Obama administration: "As climate change accelerates and we see a changing hydrological cycle, diminishing access to resources, there are direct human impacts that are water-related."

There is a real danger that if sea levels rise dramatically due to global warming as scientists predict, coastal regions may see increased salination of aquifers -- natural underground reservoirs -- which will further affect access to fresh water.  In addition, in some areas such as central China, global warming is causing rapid desertification directly outside Beijing, with desert-like conditions coming to areas that were once fertile.  The result is further stress on fresh, clean and available water.

And, what of the economic relationship between an investment in clear water projects and its return to government and business?  Consider:

• The World Health Organization reports that:
• every $1 spent on water and sanitation can bring economic benefits ranging from $7 - $12
• healthcare agencies could save $7 billion a year
• employers could gain 320 million productive days a year for workers in the 15-to-59 age range
• there could be an extra 272 million school attendance days annually
• an added 1.5 billion healthy days for children under the age of five 
• The Natural Resources Defense Council says that an investment of $11.3 billion a year could yield a payback of $83 billion a year in increased productivity and health

So, is water the new oil?  Perhaps the answer lies in considering these two questions: How long can a person live without oil?  How long can a person live without water?

 * Source: 2009 World Water Forum in Turkey

Reminder: How Earth’s Temperature is Changing

What's important:  the last decade was the warmest on record for over a century of global atmospheric and oceanic temperatures and each of the 10 warmest years recorded since 1880 have occurred in the last fifteen years.

So, drawing a comparison, how does human activity resulting in greenhouse gas emissions and global warming compare to the emission of volcanoes and the energy of nuclear warheads?

Comparing Global Warming to Volcanoes:

Human activity is by far the largest contributor to the observed increase in atmospheric CO2. Global CO2 levels have risen from 280 ppm prior to the Industrial Revolution to over 390 ppm today. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, human CO2 emissions amount to about 30 billion tons annually—more than 130 times as much as volcanoes produce each year. A case in point, In 1991 Mt. Pinatubo, one of the largest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century was estimated to have emitted 42 million tonnes of CO2. Globally, according to the US Energy Information Administration, human activity contributed 29,195 million tonnes of CO2 to the air in just 2006 alone- nearly 700 times as much as the Pinatubo volcanic eruption.

Comparing Global Warming to Nuclear Warheads:

A portion of the incoming solar radiation from the sun is trapped by greenhouse gases (ie, CO2, CH4, etc) in the earth’s atmosphere and the resulting heat energy absorbed by the oceans constitutes 80-90% of the total heat energy in the earth’s overall climatic system. The upper layers in the global oceans have warmed considerably over the last 15 years and the 2010 hurricane outlook is a dire reflection of this; the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasted an “active to extremely active” hurricane season for 2010. The NOAA projected a 70 percent probability for 14 to 23 named storms, 8 to 14 hurricanes, and 3 to 7 major hurricanes. According to an oceanography study at the University of Hawaii's Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, between 1993 and 2008 the upper 700 meters of the earth’s oceans absorbed about 0.6 watts per square meter of energy. That is nearly equivalent to the energy of 2 billion copies of the nuclear bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.

The change in earth's temperature is important.

Sources:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/jan/HQ_10-017_Warmest_temps.html
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100615_globalstats_sup.html
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090916_globalstats.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2010/04/16//2874939.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/05/20/20climatewire-robot-floats-record-sharp-increase-in-upper-67924.html

Obama's tour of Solyndra Solar Manufacturing Highlights California Cleantech Momentum

The front-page headline in the San Jose Mercury News online edition screamed: Obama Touring Fremont Solar Start-up Solyndra.  Why it's always politically beneficial to local Democrats to have the CEO of the world's most powerful economy leave Wash. DC behind for a few days to visit Silicon Valley, something more important is going on here.  Major Cleantech start-ups are building their manufacturing plants in, of all places, California!  Both the poster-child for solar energy manufacturing, Solyndara, and its cousin in the auto industry, Tesla, appear committed to centralizing manufacturing in the Golden State.  This is surprising on a number of fronts.  Given California's deserved history as a weak destination to build out manufacturing due to cost and environmental regulation, there has been a steady erosion of manufacturing jobs overseas, and to other states.

Cleantech Consulting: Product Recommendation AND Implementation Too?

In a recent meeting with a San Francisco-based Cleantech (aka sustainability) consultancy, one of the founders said their mission was to work with corporations to help them baseline their current sustainability capabilities as they related to energy, carbon, waste and water.  This was done using a model, copyrighted, that assessed the client's position, followed by recommendations from the consultancy.  The model itself had a fancy name, and appeared to be based on similar models used in the previous decade by consulting companies that had helped them successfully reengineer their client's business processes.

This San Francisco consultancy does not implement product for its clients.  Not surprising.  A host of consultancies in previous decades built global BPR brands specializing in strategic consulting -- McKinsey, Bain, BCG and others.  In the early build-up of the Cleantech industry, sustainability consultancies are no different.  However, that may change.  With the rapid growth of early stage product companies across the Cleantech ecosystem - from intelligent commercial lighting to SaaS-based carbon emissions management products, commercial solar and water re-use and purification solutions -  there is a significant opportunity. 

Cleantech consultancies, like their professional forebearers, are in a strong position to not only influence sustainability product selection, but take-on the implementation.  And, in the process reap the revenue rewards that result.  Let's look at one example.  In the carbon emissions management product sector, there are a number of high profile, venture backed start-ups including Hara, Carbonetworks and Clear Standards (acquired by SAP).  Most of these products are sold as a SaaS-based platform, with subscription pricing 
that gives customer's the ability to itemize and track the inputs (water, electricity, chemicals) and outputs (the product, greenhouse gases, wastewater) that make up the business processes.

Mining Conference Exhibitor Leads With Inside Sales

So, you've heard everything that needs to be said about marketing at industry conferences and seminars? You've moved on to the promise, and results, of Web-based marketing and don't want to waste your precious marketing budget on those expensive, 'old-tech' events? Time to re-think. Exploited intelligently, the right conference or seminar can give your Cleantech start-up a surprising number of qualified leads.

Here's how: the traditional, and expensive, conference lead generation and branding campaign is very well documented. ID the related industry conference, negotiate with the conference organizers, contract for booth space, build your campaign around that booth. Then, integrate various marketing and sales components such as your Website, press releases, pre and post-conference direct mail and email, custom collateral, impressive booth graphics, installed base newsletter promo's, conference week dinner or bar sponsorships for key prospects, booth give-aways (anyone need a logo'd aluminum pen), can't live without prize raffles (every wonder why you never won the prize when you dropped your business card into the plastic fishbowl at the booth?... Marketing and Sales make sure only the top prospects 'win' the raffle, leveraging that for the follow-up sales call... I know, I know, unfair... now you can save that business card), even magicians or other acts hired to attract conference attendees to your booth. The list of integrated marketing activities prior, during and after the conference that, with a little innovation and stellar execution, result in the right (though expensive) outcome, is long.

However, there is another way. Leveraging clever pre-conference analytics, an inside sales team armed with the right call list, phone and email scripts, marketing back-office follow-up, and on-site conference support from your company's Sales Team, your company can skip the expensive conference booth and still capture those qualified leads you so highly desire. The trick is to realize that many of those leads are already at the conference exibiting, not just attending. The surrounding conference booths are staffed by both influencers and buyers from companies you want to do business with. Once you realize this, you now have defined targets that you can locate easily and approach intelligently. While the target volume is lower compared to the attendee volume flowing by your booth, the quality is much higher.

So, here is a short, linear summary of your lead generation campaign:

1. ID the appropriate conference to target your lead generation campaign toward
2. There are a number of clever ways to do this that are too numerous to mention in this post
3. Analyze the conference exhibitor list, the list is published by the conference organizers on the conference website EVERY time
4. As a bonus to your campaign, review the conference speaker's list on the conference website. Some speaker's work for the exhibitor companies, some don't. Some speakers work for companies you want as customers
5. Once you have your macro list, eliminate the obvious exhibitors and speakers that don't fit your target profile. Marketing should take this first screening cut
6. Next, qualify the list further with your Sales Team. Some on the list will already be customers, and may, or may not, need targeting at the conference (think up-selling)
7. Your Sales Team will tell you what companies on the list they want to priority target
8. Now, you have your final target list of exhibitor companies and conference speakers
9. At this point the next phase of your campaign project plan begins with...