Venture Capital and Clean Technology
Venture Capital and Clean Technology
In the last half century, venture capitalists have financed many of the most important new U.S. technology-based industries. This chapter poses the question of whether Clean Technology is an industry, suggesting that this is not the case. After explaining the three key structural characteristics of technologies and markets in which venture capital can be successfully invested, it provides an overview of the diverse clean technology sectors to see if they match the characteristics. The structural success criteria are the following: First, the firm’s markets must be large and growing. Second, the firm’s solutions must be scalable, with the particular characteristic that growth in revenue (and valuation) must, after an initial hiatus, significantly outpace the capital needed to achieve it. Third, there must be the potential for large and rapid payoff for investors. To illustrate how these criteria apply to a particular clean technology marker, solar photovoltaic technologies are analyzed.
Keywords: Clean technology, venture capital, innovation, markets, solar photovoltaics
Stanford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
