As governments around the world are scaling back support for renewable energy, venture capitalists are shifting their clean technology investment strategy. They're focusing less on high-risk technologies and more on technologies, such as those for improving energy efficiency, that could have a faster payoff but a smaller impact. The shift is raising concerns about how innovative energy technologies will be commercialized.
Venture capitalists have traditionally focused on companies with low capital requirements that can quickly get bought up or go public. Many Internet startups fall into this category. But in recent years, many venture capitalists have been enticed to risk longer-term, high-capital energy investments in clean energy, thanks to by generous government subsidies in renewable energy markets. In particular, they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on solar-cell startups that need to build expensive equipment and factories to prove their technologies, and can take many years to generate a return on investment.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Venture Capitalists Back Away from Clean Energy - Technology Review
Author: KEVIN BULLIS
