Clean technology investors move towards funding mature firms, technology boutique says

5 March 2010

Clean technology investments have evolved from focusing on start-ups to those companies further along the development chain, a technology-focused corporate finance boutique told NewNet.

Clipperton Finance partner Stephane Valorge said financing has moved towards firms already generating revenues instead of focusing on early deals required in the initial stages of a clean energy firm’s start-up.

‘It has changed over the past three years. It has followed the trend of the regular technology space in that it has moved from pure early-stage investment to more mature later-stage investment.’

He also said that Europe has developed a natural lead in the environmentally technology space.

‘Cleantech is one of the major segments where European companies are way ahead of the US. It is a nice sector to be active in because there good technologies coming from Germany, France and the UK that are very fitted to the cleantech sector,’ Valorge said.

‘There is no first-mover advantage in the US, especially when compared to the internet and telecom markets.’

But developments in Asia mean that that Europe needs to move fast to keep this lead.

‘The negative point for Europe is that Asia, and especially China, is moving at a terrible pace,’ Valorge said.

Copyright © 2010 NewNet

Tags: cleantech

This story was published on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Asia, Europe, North America, companies, energy efficiency. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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