Clean Technology & Private Equity/ VC, Company and Fund Research

BrightSource Energy
August 10, 2009 — matthewlim

About: BrightSource Energy, Inc. provides clean, reliable and low cost solar energy for utility and industrial companies worldwide. The BrightSource Energy team combines nearly three decades of experience designing, building and operating the world’s largest solar energy plants with world-class project development capabilities. The company now has contracted to sell more than 2.6 gigawatts of power to be generated using its proprietary solar thermal technology. BrightSource Energy’s solar plants are designed to minimize their impact on the environment and help customers reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Oakland, Calif., BrightSource Energy is a privately held company with operations in the United States and Israel.

www.brightsourceenergy.com

Key Personnel:
Management:
John M. Woolard, CEO and President
Israel Kroizer, Chief Operating Officer, BrightSource Energy, and President of BrightSource Industries (Israel) Ltd.
Jack Jenkins-Stark, Chief Financial Officer
Thomas P. Doyle, Executive Vice President, Global Development
Charles Ricker, Senior Vice President, Business Development
Joshua Bar-Lev, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs
Daniel T. Judge, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary

Board of Directors:
Arnold J. Goldman, Chairman & Founder
John M. Woolard, CEO and President
David Fries, Managing Director, VantagePoint Venture Partners
Geoffrey Richardson, Executive Director, Morgan Stanley
Jim Eats, Director, BrightSource Energy, Inc.

Technology:
BrightSource Energy’s proprietary Luz Power Tower 550 (LPT 550) energy system is built on proven “power tower” technology. The system uses thousands of small mirrors called heliostats to reflect sunlight onto a boiler atop a tower to produce high temperature steam. The steam is then piped to a conventional turbine which generates electricity. In order to conserve precious desert water, the LPT 550 system uses air-cooling to convert the steam back into water. The water is then returned to the boiler in an environmentally-friendly closed cycle. This fully integrated energy system is designed to offer the highest operating efficiencies and lowest capital costs in the industry.

Funding:
Series C, May 2008 – $115m
VantagePoint Venture Partners
Google.org
BP Alternative Energy
Statoil Hydro Venture
Black River Asset Management
Morgan Stanley
DBL Investors (formerly a subsidiary of JP Morgan)
Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Chevron Technology Ventures

Seed capital is from VantagePoint
Total funding raised to date: More than $160m

News: On 14 July 2009, BrightSource Energy was named as one of the 25 companies to watch in energy tech by BusinessWeek. BrightSource imports its solar thermal technology from Israel where its plants have been transforming heat from the sun into electricity for decades using scores of mirrors to concentrate the sun’s heat. BrightSource has contracts with Southern California Edison (SCE) and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) to build 14 plants in the sunny Southwestern US by 2017.

On 13 May 2009, PG&E announced that it has entered into a series of contracts with BrightSource for a total of 1,310MW of solar thermal power. The power purchase agreements, covering 7 projects, superseded that agreements in April 2008 for up to 900MW of solar thermal power. All 7 projects are expected to produce 3,666 gigawatt-hours of power each year, equal to the annual consumption of about 530,000 average homes. PG&E said the agreement represents the largest solar deal in the world. The first of the 7 deals, a 110MW plan in Ivanpah, Calif., is expected to begin operation in 2012. BrightSource plans to secure project financing the 2nd half of 2009.

Prior to this, in 11 Feb 2009, SCE and BrightSource signed agreement on a series of contracts for 1,300MW of clean solar thermal power, enough to serve nearly 845,000 homes. It was the world’s largest solar deal then; so now BrightSource has 2 largest solar deals. The first of the 7 solar power plants is located in Ivanpah, Calif., and is expected to produce 286,000 megawatt-hours of renewable electricity per year.

BrightSource Industries (Israel) Ltd., formerly named Luz II Ltd., is a wholly owned subsidiary of BrightSource Energy, Inc. Based in Israel, BrightSource Industries is responsible for solar technology development, plant design and engineering.

Competitors:
Ausra, Solel, eSolar, SUNRGI, Abengoa Solar, Sener, SolarReserve
Note: In this article, it said that several concentrating solar companies were founded in the past five years, but the credit crisis and economic downturn has made it very difficult to finance these expensive projects. One BrightSource Energy competitor, Ausra, has shifted its business strategy away from giant solar power plants to focus on being a technology and equipment supplier instead to begin immediately generating revenue.

brightsource
Posted in Energy Generation, Solar. Tags: Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Ausra, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Israel, Morgan Stanley, David Fries, BrightSource Energy, SolarReserve, Google.org, eSolar, US, Oakland, John M. Woolard, Israel Kroizer, Jack Jenkins-Stark, Thomas P. Doyle, Charles Ricker, Joshua Bar-Lev, Daniel T. Judge, Arnold J. Goldman, Geoffrey Richardson, Jim Eats, BP Alternative Energy, Statoil Hydro Venture, Black River Asset Management, DBL Investors, Chevron Technology Ventures, BusinessWeek, Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, Ivanpah, Luz II Ltd, BrightSource Industries, Solel, SUNRGI, Abengoa Solar, Sener. 2 Comments »
Cleantech Group-Deloitte Report 2008
July 22, 2009 — matthewlim

This quite detailed 80-page report has an Investor League Table 2008 that is slightly different from New Energy Finance’s. The Top Investors, measured by rounds of participation are:

1. Khosla Ventures, 21
2. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, 19
3. Quercus Trust, 16
4. RockPort Capital, 14
5. Draper Fisher Jurvetson, 13
6. Emerald Technology Ventures, 11
7. VantagePoint Venture Partners, 10
8. Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, 8
PCG Asset Management, 8
Oak Investment Partners, 8
Advanced Technology Ventures, 8
Google, 8
9. Venrock Associates, 7
Foundation Capital, 7
Polaris Venture Partners, 7

The list of investments are in the report. What I like about this report is that it contains tables that track deals in North America, Europe, China and India and table of M&A deal tracking (only for 4Q08). For example, it shows this company:

Company: Silver Spring Networks, Inc. – Provider of two-way IP-based networking communication infrastructures to utilities for advanced metering, distribution automation, and demand response. (comment: a brief description of the company is given)
Country: USA
Region: West Coast
Amount USD: $75,000,000
Stage: Follow-On (comment: it can show first round or seed for other companies)
Sector: Energy Infrastructure
Investors: Foundation Capital, JVB Properties, LLLP, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Northgate Capital (comment: it lists the investors for the company)

A note to take is that Cleantech Group does not yet cover Asia beyond China and India (including Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and others), South America (including Brazil, which has significant biofuels activity), or Africa. If there is time, we can look at these missed out countries in order not to miss out any good investment opportunities.

There’s a lot of graphs, tables and analysis in the report that we can look into it. There’s also analysis by geography, for example, India. There’s no table showing a list of top investors in India 2008 but I have to sieve through the section to come up with this ranking:
1. Acumen Fund (4)
2. IDFC Private Equity (3) (it’s the top investor: $201m)
Draper Fisher Jurvetson (3)
3. Nexus India Capital (2)

A brief summary about India: Indian companies raised $456 million in 18 disclosed deals venture capital and private equity rounds during 2008 (amount not disclosed in 1 deal). Investment in the region represented 4% of the global total. Although down by 20% from the previous year, 2008 saw new investors including Kleiner Perkins and Garage Technology Ventures, as well as corporate investors such as Applied Materials, entered the India clean technology market.
Posted in Clean Technology VC Funds, Media Research. Tags: RockPort Capital, Chrysalix Energy, New Energy Finance, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Khosla Ventures, Quercus Trust, Emerald Technology Ventures, India, Silver Spring Networks, Foundation Capital, JVB Properties, Northgate Capital, VantagePoint Venture Partners, PCG Asset Management, Oak Investment Partners, Advanced Technology Ventures, Google, Venrock, Polaris Venture Partners, Cleantech Group, Deloitte, Acumen Fund, IDFC Private Equity, Nexus India Capital, Garage Technology Ventures, Applied Materials. 2 Comments »
VCs investing in India
July 21, 2009 — matthewlim

In this 21 Feb 2008 report by Xconomy, the 2 leading New England VCs investing in India are Matrix Partners and Canaan Partners. A report from Dow Jones VentureSource shows that venture capital investment collected by entrepreneurs in India nearly tripled in 2007, totaling $928 million across 80 separate deals, as compared to just $349 million for 36 deals in 2006. It was “easily the highest total on record for the region,” according to the Dow Jones report. Some 48% of the funding went to information technology companies, and two IT-focused New England firms, Waltham, MA-based Matrix Partners and Westport, CT-based Canaan Partners, were among the top 10 venture firms sending money to India, closing five deals between them.

Here’s the list of the top 20 investors placing equity-based venture investments in Indian companies in 2007. (All data courtesy of Dow Jones Venture Source.)
Name Type of Fund Number of Deals
Draper Fisher Jurvetson Venture Capital 7
IDG Ventures India Venture Capital 6
Intel Capital Corporate VC 5
Sequoia Capital Venture Capital 4
Erasmic Venture Fund Venture Capital 3
Matrix Partners Venture Capital 3
Velocity Interactive Group Venture Capital 2
Canaan Partners Venture Capital 2
Carlyle Group Private Equity 2
SVB Financial Group Investment Bank 2
Clearstone Venture Partners Venture Capital 2
UTI Venture Funds Venture Capital 2
GVFL Venture Capital 2
Temasek Holdings Other 2
ICICI Venture Funds Management Venture Capital 2
Silicon Valley Bank Other 2
SIDBI Venture Capital Venture Capital 2
Individual Investors Angel Investor 2
New Enterprise Associates Venture Capital 2
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Venture Capital 2

Comment: Since quite a significant number of the VCs invested in IT-related companies, we’ll need to look at the details of the investments which are in cleantech sector later. DFJ is definitely one of the cleantech VC players in India, having established an office in Bangalore. What to invest in Incredible India?
Posted in Media Research. Tags: Canaan Partners, Carlyle Group, Clearstone Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Erasmic Venture Fund, GVFL, ICICI Venture Funds Management, IDG Ventures India, India, Individual Investors, Intel Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Matrix Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital, SIDBI Venture Capital, Silicon Valley Bank, SVB Financial Group, Temasek Holdings, UTI Venture Funds, Velocity Interactive Group. 1 Comment »
Draper Fisher Jurvetson
July 21, 2009 — matthewlim

About: Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) backs extraordinary entrepreneurs everywhere who set out to change the world. DFJ achieves its mission through its DFJ Global Network of Partner Funds. Together, DFJ and the Network manage over $6B and have made more than 600 investments on four continents. With a 24-year history (since its founding in 1985) of success across diverse sectors and market conditions, DFJ has led the way investing in emerging technologies, from the Internet and life sciences to clean energy and nanotechnology. DFJ has been proud to back over 500 companies across many sectors including such industry changing successes such as Hotmail (acquired by MSFT), Baidu (BIDU), Skype (acquired by EBAY), United Online (UNTD), Overture (acquired by YHOO), Athenahealth (ATHN), EnerNOC (ENOC), TicketsNow (acquired by TicketMaster), Feedburner (acquired by Google), Interwoven (IWOV), Four11 (acquired by YHOO), Parametric (PMTC), and Digidesign (acquired by AVID).

The DFJ Network includes DFJ, DFJ Athena, DFJ Dragon, DFJ Esprit, DFJ FIR, DFJ Frontier, DFJ Gotham, DFJ Growth, DFJ InCube, DFJ Mercury, DFJ Portage, DFJ Tamir Fishman, Draper Triangle, DFJ Vina, DFJ-VTB Aurora, Element Partners, and Epic Ventures. DFJ has offices located in Menlo Park (US), Shanghai and Bangalore.

www.dfj.com

Key Personnel:
Tim Draper, Managing Director
John Fisher, Managing Director
Steve Jurvetson, Managing Director (interesting article on him here)
Warren Packard, Managing Director
Jennifer Fonstad, Managing Director
Andreas Stavropoulos, Managing Director
Raj Atluru, Managing Director (Raj speaks about DFJ & cleantech practice here)
Josh Stein, Managing Director
Don Wood, Managing Director
Mark Greenstein, Managing Director/CFO

Portfolio:
Since DFJ invested in >200 companies, we selected the relevant sector only for our blog:
Energy/Clean Technology – Attero Recycling, BioFuelBox, BrightSource Energy, Carbon Micro Battery, CoalTek, D.light design, Deeya Energy, EdenIQ, Ember, EnerNOC, Eoplex, Genomatica, Glycos Biotechnologies, GreatPoint Energy, Intematix, Jing-Jin Electric, Kaiima, Konarka, Luminus Devices, Miartech, NanoTune, Nottingham International, Oasys Water, Planet Metrics, Power Assure, Primet Precision Materials, Prudent Energy, Reva Electric, SeaMicro, Solar Junction, SolarCity, Solicore, SPSCAP, Synthetic Genomics, Tang Wind Energy, Tesla Motors, Tioga Energy, VerTerra, Widetronix.

News: July 2009: DFJ has recently rounded up $196 million in a first closing of its latest venture fund, putting the fund nearly half way to a revised $400 million target, according to a recent filing with the SEC. DFJ initially told prospective LPs that it wanted to raise $600 million for Draper Fisher Jurvetson Fund X LP but later lowered its sights to $400 million due to the challenging fund-raising environment, VentureWire reported in May. DFJ also made concessions on terms that it’s offering to the limited partners, including the addition of a hurdle rate that it must clear before the firm will be entitled to the 25% premium carry. DFJ, which declined to comment on the fund, is widely known as an early-stage investor, although like many early-stage VCs it has expanded into later-stage deals in recent years with a $290 million dedicated growth equity fund, which closed in 2007.

Comment: One of the interesting things I find about this firm is that it ventured into space exploration sector by backing a Hawthorne Calif.-based company called Space Exploration Technologies Corp., better known as Space X. The company develops and manufactures launch vehicles for government and commercial space transportation. It was founded by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk. Is it too early for commercial space travel/transportation investment? But Jurvetson’s a fan of space start-ups though he believes that the space tourism is too expensive. This is yet contrasted by Richard Branson’s vision of space travel by establishing the Virgin Galactic. So we’ll see who’s right in the future.

I uploaded 2 videos on Vodpod but it doesn’t seem to be able to view. I put the original links here from GigaOm Show and FoxBusiness.

dfj
Posted in Clean Technology VC Funds. Tags: Tioga Energy, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Tim Draper, John Fisher, Steve Jurvetson, Attero Recycling, BioFuelBox, Carbon Micro Battery, CoalTek, D.light design, Deeya Energy, EdenIQ, Ember, EnerNOC, Eoplex, Genomatica, Glycos Biotechnologies, GreatPoint Energy, Intematix, Jing-Jin Electric, Kaiima, Konarka, Luminus Devices, Miartech, NanoTune, Nottingham International, Oasys Water, Planet Metrics, Power Assure, Primet Precision Materials, Prudent Energy, Reva Electric, SeaMicro, Solar Junction, SolarCity, Solicore, SPSCAP, Synthetic Genomics, Tang Wind Energy, Tesla Motors, VerTerra, Widetronix, Raj Atluru, Space X, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic, Menlo Park, Shanghai, Bangalore, DFJ, DFJ Athena, DFJ Dragon, DFJ Esprit, DFJ FIR, DFJ Frontier, DFJ Gotham, DFJ Growth, DFJ InCube, DFJ Mercury, DFJ Portage, DFJ Tamir Fishman, Draper Triangle, DFJ Vina, DFJ-VTB Aurora, Element Partners, Epic Ventures, BrightSource Energy. 1 Comment »
New Energy Finance: League Table 2008
July 21, 2009 — matthewlim

New Energy Finance recently released the Clean Energy Leagues Table 2008 in March 2009.

The top 10 VC/PE investors by number of disclosed investments are:
1. Good Energies – 21 no. of deals ($65.3m)
2. Draper Fisher Jurvetson – 20 ($102.9m)
3. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers – 16 ($187.2m)
4. RockPort Capital Partners – 14 ($166.3m)
5. Khosla Ventures – 14 ($111.5m)
6. Quercus Trust / David Gelbaum – 12 ($37.3m)
7. Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital – 12 ($12.6m)
8. Demeter Partners – 11 ($51.4m)
9. VantagePoint Venture Partners – 9 ($79.3m)
10. Emerald Technology Ventures – 8 ($41.6m)

The top 10 VC/PE investors by indicative $ amount invested are:
1. Magnum Capital – $910m (1 no. of deal)
2. Doughty Hanson & Co – $735.8m (2 deals)
3. First Reserve Corp – $707m (2)
4. Denham Capital Management LP – $375m (3)
5. Mubadala Development Company – $262.6m (6)
6. General Electric – $257.9m (6)
7. Goldman Sachs – $210.5m (4)
8. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board – $200m (1)
9. Rabobank Group – $193.1m (7)
10. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers – $187.2m (16)

The list of investments are in the report.

Comment: A number of the largest amount of investments are due to PE buyout. For example, the Portuguese buyout firm Magnum Capital has the single biggest buyout deal after agreeing the €1.2bn ($1.5bn) acquisition of the renewable energy assets in Enersis owned by Babcock & Brown, the Australian investment bank and infrastructure specialist, and its listed wind power subsidiary in 4Q 2008. B&B, one of Australia’s biggest casualties of the credit crisis, has put its European wind assets up for sale in a move to raise much-needed cash.
Posted in Clean Technology VC Funds, Media Research. Tags: RockPort Capital, Chrysalix Energy, New Energy Finance, Good Energies, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Clean Energy Leagues Table, Khosla Ventures, Quercus Trust, David Gelbaum, Demeter Partners, Emerald Technology Ventures, Magnum Capital, Doughty Hanson & Co, First Reserve Corp, Denham Capital Management LP, Mubadala Development Company, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Rabobank Group, Babcock & Brown, Enersis, VantagePoint Venture Partners.