In case you’re bored…
Here’s another story about this “new” thing called cleantech. There’s nothing wrong with the story, and I’m happy that there’s a sustained interest in the area, but I feel like I’ve read half a dozen variations of the same article over the past two months. My fear is that people are going to get tired of the topic and write this whole “cleantech” label off as an investing fad. I’ve already spoken with quite a few venture capitalists who roll their eyes when they hear the word. It’s a tricky situation.
Nonetheless, here’s an interesting graph from the story:
Customers in the energy industry tend to have much longer sales cycles than the IT industry. Because the adoption rate of clean tech is slower, different segments tend to be less competitive, and the potential returns are lower than IT.
The comment is attributed to Nick Parker, co-founder of the Cleantech Venture Network, who goes on to say about the area: “There are more base hits and fewer home runs.”
Interesting way of looking at the market.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
