The Grass is "Greener"

On VC Investing and Greentech

The NY Times had a long expose this weekend on Kleiner Perkins, and their push into Green Technology investments.

If you're in the world of venture investing or green investing its definitely worth reading.

Provides a great view into one of the worlds top venture capital firms, their vision, and ability to identify the next big trend. A few notes I highlighted:

• Vision: Kleiner's “map of grand challenges” - Lists of “things that ought to be possible,” in Doerr’s words — ideas, that might produce huge changes and, with an investment stake, huge profits
• Guts: "When you have a great opportunity, push all the chips, all the resources that you can, to the center of the table"
• The Green Opportunity: “I’m so dead certain that we’re solving the next huge problem for the planet.”  “I’m not very good at hitting the bull’s-eye. I need a big target. And this is the biggest target I’ve ever seen in my life

Technorati Tags: Kleiner Perkins,KPCB,Greentech,NY Times

Pininfarina Electric Vehicle

If the $100K+ Tesla electric roadster is not exciting enough for you

 

 

then Pininfarina, the preeminent car design firm (behind names such as Ferrari, Maserati, etc), is working on a EV design to be unveiled at the Paris Motor Show....

 

Should be interesting...

And if you prefer a motor bike, Brammo just announced closing of their A round today... Still need some patience before these bikes hit the streets...

Finally - I recently had a "test drive" with another company developing electric bikes...

Rest assured - these things are fast.

Renewables also taking a hit

Seems this sector, as all others, is impacted by the economic volatility. Yesterday Schott Solar announced it is delaying its initial public offering.

Early / growth stage companies in the renewable / resource efficiency sectors whom I've met over the last few months have also been experiencing quite a difficult fund raising environment. It now seems that many are rethinking the "hyped" valuation expectations they had, and focusing on getting the money they need to ride the storm...

 

Thoughts on the market crash

A friend asked me what my thoughts are on the market crash of the last week (and year)...

Here are a few:

This week I happen to be reading the book “The black swan”. In short, it talks about highly improbable events, with three principle characteristics: 1. They are unpredictable 2. carry massive impact 3. and after the fact we find explanations that make it seem less random and more predictable.

To me, the recent financial turmoil, is another black swan. Even though people have been talking about the risks over the last years, nobody could predict such outcome.

As a partner of mine mentioned - Its one of those events and cycles that we should all recall before making an investment: Extreme risk lives in places you would not believe in “normal conditions”… and as we already know, our world, with the financial and industry systems, can quickly become “abnormal”.

In venture stage investing I've been told many times - there is no such thing as “downside protection”… It appears that even in late stage investing, and public markets investing, this is true. There is nothing too big to fail, or too good to fail…

On the bright side - given the down cycle must end at some stage, the time to start investing is becoming increasingly closer...

Selecting this years best entrepreneur

This week I helped out with the selection process for E&Y's Entrepreneur of the Year award in the US.

I am very familiar with this competition in Israel, and it seems that each year I've been able to fairly easily single out the top 3-5 Israeli companies that stand out (Ormat was the winner in 2007).

On this side of the ocean, singling out 5 finalists from nearly one hundred entrepreneurs was an extremely challenging exercise.  The main reason is that all the finalists have built exceptional businesses and achieved great success. Several stand out for exceptional achievements (The top 100 list consists of the winning companies in state competitions that have been held across the US)

Some highlights from reviewing the nominees:

• Most of the companies here have actually achieved the "J curve" (i.e. exponential) growth that companies promise as they start off
• Many of the companies are not necessarily high tech - and come from the services businesses, consumer goods, healthcare, education, and more.
• Giving back to the community is a core part of the businesses and the entrepreneurs from the start
• And last, but definitely not least - Exit / industry sale is rarely an option. Companies with well over $50mn or $100mn revenues are still in high growth stages, and look to continue as independent entities far into the future
• Not many "Ceantech" companies were nominated - proof of the (still) early stage of most companies. This I'm sure will change in the coming years.

According to the selection criteria, selecting the best entrepreneur is based on the business created, its success, leadership, financial performance, originality, coping with challanges, etc.

I decided to include a few criteria of my own which helped separate a small number from the rest:

• The business model - how innovative is it, and how powerful / robust are the economics underlying the business
• How capital efficient is the company - specifically, how much money has been raised from investors per each $ of revenues (or each $ of profit) - and how much ownership has the entrepreneur (and the employees) been able to retain?
• How much personal risk has been undertaken by the entrepreneur (Its really amazing to see how many entrepreneurs have taken personal loans on their homes, put up personal financing for their business, worked without salary, etc)

So the committee eventually selected one winner, which will be announced in mid November at the E&Y strategic growth forum (hosted by Jay Leno). Stay tuned

 

Technorati Tags: E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year

San Francisco mornings

1. For anyone used to sleeping in late, working in San Francisco (or the US west coast) is not ideal.

Being located at (nearly) the last time zone in the business world (i.e. everyone ends the day before you) - means your days start early. Very early.

Today I started off with a 7:30am meeting… and Thursday I have a 6am (!!!) call. (Anyone who knows me, will understand this is not trivial, and much closer to the hours I am used to falling asleep at)

I was anticipating this could happen, so tried to not overcome the jetlag arriving from Israel (i.e. going to sleep early and waking up early). But that plan failed, having woken up Sunday at 1pm…

2. In San Francisco, breakfast meetings are the means of doing business

This is in contrast to the Israel business lunch or diner. This morning I had breakfast with the Founder of a company in the solar industry, who's about to get acquired. (great timing in terms of market hype)

The location was really amazing - A small cafe / restaurant called Boulettes Ladder located in the Ferry Building marketplace. Basically, great food, located on the waterfront, with seating at a large table situated right next to the cooking ovens and chefs.

(Its quite clear why some of the key Private Equity firms have relocated thier offices to this area...)

 

Technorati Tags: San Francisco, Breakfast, Boulettes Ladder, Ferry Building farmers market

 

My new home base

More details to follow...

da bubble

Just had to post this one... (Thanks Danny)

Israel Green Academia

As I mentioned in the past, Israel is home to some of the worlds leading research and academic institutions.

Today I was lucky enough to be hosted at Ben Gurion University (BGU) in the Negev. I met the team leading the university's technology transfer activities (i.e. taking technologies and IP from the academic world into the industry), and several of the people behind the University's Green research.

One of the more interesting people I met, was the head of the Zuckerberg water research institute (located in Sde Boker). The institute focuses on developments across the water domain, including desalination, water treatment, membrane technologies, hydro chemistry, environmental hydrology, etc. Their team has grown significantly over the last years and currently has 22 faculty members, 16 engineers, and 62 graduate students, who come from all over the world to the desert - to find the next water innovation.

Bridging the divide:

In Greentech, much more than core IT, there is a big divide between the stage of academic research, and the stage of exporting it into the industry. There are additional stages that have to take place after the researcher finishes his work , so that the entrepreneur can start to work on it (and the VC can start to invest).

I think that one of the more encouraging takeaways i had from the day was that not only is BGU a place with significant Green innovations, but its also unique in thinking (and acting) on how to bridge this divide. For example, going beyond the pen & paper theoretical stage, and building actual testing labs for projects / products (Two such have already been built).

The meetings today showed there is a  strong desire from the researchers to go beyond the "theory". To build the products, and  increase their  involvement with the industry.

 

 

Technorati Tags: Israel, Greentech, Ben Gurion, University, Water, Sde Boker

Free ticket to LeWeb3 Conference through iDrink

We are giving out  a free ticket (worth 1136 euros) on iDrink, to assist LeWeb3 conference in Paris next Dec 11/12.

LeWeb3 is the largest (and probably one of the best) European conference on the Internet. Check out the program or the workshop sessions.

All the details are explained in the blog post featured on top of the site.

Tomorrow is the last day to participate - just join iDrink and follow the rules. If you don't win and still want to go, you can get a discount through iDrink as well.

 

Here's some thoughts from last year's event.

 

Technorati Tags: leWeb 3, iDrink