Yet another high-flying Silicon Valley entrepreneur is planning to capitalize on the growing popularity of “green” technology, and to do it, he’s tapping the wisdom of crowds as well as their cash.
Steve Newcomb, a co-founder of search startup Powerset, is in the early stages of launching a venture-capital fund that would accept green investments as low as $100, with a maximum investment of $1,000.
Cool. I posted yesterday about cleantech in general and NZ Windfarms lts in particular. I got a reply which indicated some stumbling blocks for cleantech investment, namely poor investment targets and limited ROI. While a crowdsourced VC targeting cleantech won’t solve these issues per se, it will give cleantech startups the impetus to become more realistic and chase both the green nirvana and business viability.
I think it is a great idea. It’s a shame we can’t do it here in NZ. About time the rules around small investments were relaxed.
How come I can go to an online broker and invest my life savings in the sharemarket or a clapped out investment firm without proper advice, yet if I want to place a micro-investment of say $1,000 into an unlisted firm there are all sorts of rules around providing a prospectus, doing due diligence etc…?
I did a little more research on this. It turns out Newcomb is a serial entrepreneur from the Valley who opted out of Powerset to pursue a green political and business agenda.
Here’s an interesting article from his blog discussing the possibility that investment in “green technologies” could be another bubble in the making.
http://www.blognewcomb.com/blog/2008/01/is_greentech_the_new_bubble.html#more