Daniel Englander
It’s Not The Size of the Fund in the Fight, It’s the Size of the Fight in Fund April 29, 2008 at 9:26 PM
Big time greentech funds are popping up faster than mushrooms after a spring rain. Last week the John and Al Show announced they were raising a $400 million “Green Growth” fund aimed at late-stage “private and public investments as well as . . . carve outs and spinouts.” Other $400 million+ funds include the soon-to-close RockPort kitty ($450 million), the second coming of Element Partners ($400 million), and a $500 million piggy bank from NGEN Partners. Today’s Wall Street Journal calls out Russell Read, the soon-to-be former chief investment officer of the $244 billion CalPERS fund, as the new face in the greentech investment jungle. Read will depart CalPERS on June 30 to begin raising capital for his own fund, which “will cover investments ranging from early stage deals to project-development-stage companies.”
And there’s more… The same WSJ article has Riverstone Holdings LLC picking up $500 million for its mammoth $4 billion greentech fund and Hudson Clean Energy Partners grabbing $300 billion for its own $1 billion fund. Maybe I should say “fund” one more time. Fund.
If all these high rollers make good on their targets, we can expect $6.75 billion moving into the greentech space over the next few years from six individual funds. Since we’re not expecting these guys (well, maybe Al) to pile up the cash and roll around Scrooge McDuck-style in a money bin, this massive accumulation of capital begs the question: where’s it all going to go? The early-stage and research funding gap left open by Andy Karsner’s betrayal is a good opportunity to get the ball rolling. But, I suspect over the long term VCs will smarten up to the fact the greentech isn’t as similar to the web (or even telecom) as many people think.
In other words, it will start to become apparent that greentech more closely resembles an industrial market than the easy-in, easy-out world of the web. Project development and capacity expansion are where the real money’s at. Hence the $4 billion Riverstone PE fund and KPCB’s new focus on late-stage private and public investing. The effects of rising fuel and construction costs on traditional power generation capacity will likely amplify the growth in project development, as utilities and power producers begin seeking generation sources with low (or no) variable costs and capital recovery factors (let’s hear it for solid state technologies!). Compounding this effect is the high likelihood of some form of emission regulation appearing in the U.S. within the next few years, which will leave companies in newly-regulated sectors scrambling for scalable technologies capable of reducing emissions.
The rise of big funds is directed at big projects with big returns in big markets. The little guys can fight over the rest.
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I am one of the, as you say, little guys. I have been encountering various different project opportunities internationally, I am working with some of the opportunities, and also hope to find partners to form a small medium sized investment fund at some point. You are correct in how different greentech is from IT&C investments, and the fact that most VC´s do not yet realize this. Unfortunately in Ontario Canada, at least this time around, many VC´s are behind the curve. I would like to invite other little guys, investors, to join me in an investment club so we can jointly organize ourselves on a wide range of opportunities. Starting small but building highly scalable projects, and getting in early on other clean energy investment opportunities.
[...] vehicles are all garnering an enormous share of investment capital. The sheer amount of new funds propagating in the greentech sector is mind boggling.The financial landscape is changing and that change will see billions and [...]