Let’s start with the good news: In 2009 cleantech became the dominant category in venture capital investing, attracting$5.6 billion in new investments worldwide. That’s more than IT or biotechnology, which until recently attracted the majority of VC investments. So says a report released today by the Cleantech Group and Deloitte.
Dallas Kachan, managing director of the Cleantech Group, tells the New York Times’ Green Inc.:
Clean-tech went from a niche category to become the dominant category in venture capital investing.
Now the for the bad news. The $5.6 billion that flowed into renewable energy startups last year, actually represented a 33 percent drop from the $8.5 billion invested in 2008. Investments in cleantech have retreated to 2003 levels, according to the Cleantech Group /Deloitte report — see table below.
The investment drop can largely be blamed on the global financial crisis and the dearth of funding that ensued.
The Cleantech Group and Deloitte report has tracked 557 cleantech investments in 2009 from 567 deals in 2008, and 488 in 2007.
In cleantech, the solar sector got a majority of the early stage funding, securing $1.2 billion. Solyndra, the California maker of thin-film photovoltaic cells, raised $198 million last year, the largest amount of venture cash raised. It also secured a $535 million Department of Energy loan guarantee to build a solar panel plant. Some $1 billion went to startups that develop energy efficiency technology.
Venture capitalists invested $331 million in China last year — a modest amount compared to the $3.5 billion invested in North America, which is a 42 percent drop compared to a year ago.