Venture capital firms that focus on cleantech are looking for the next big area to invest in, and they seem to have settled on smart grid, energy storage and other efficiency technologies.
“We are going through a repositioning of cleantech,” Wal van Lierop, founder of Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, told Bloomberg. “The big sectors - solar, wind and LEDs - are in the process of being consolidated. They’re maturing, so they fall out of the cleantech opportunity basket. We now are trying to find the next hot spots.”
This shift has been going on for the past couple of years. As investors have been hurt by problems in the solar and wind industries, they’ve been looking for less capital-intensive technologies to support.
In 2012, investments in privately held renewable energy companies dropped 34 per cent to $5.75 billion - the lowest level in at least six years, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
While solar companies received $1.58 billion, efficiency-oriented technologies received 38 per cent of the total - $2.2 billion.
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