ARISE Technologies and the hunt for solar venture capital
My Clean Break column in today’s Toronto Star takes a look at Kitchener-based ARISE Technologies Corp. and its hope of raising money this week at the Cleantech Venture Forum in San Francisco. The piece takes a look at growth in the solar market, the phenomenal success of IPOs in the sector, and the encouraging public policy environment. The conditions are ripe for investment, but can a small, debt-burdened company like ARISE distinguish itself in an increasingly crowded market? The bottom line is that it has to, because failure to raise capital this week could be the beginning of the end of its ambitious plans.
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.
March 20th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Solar is the same as any other business – you still need some basic management skills and integrity to succeed. Arise has shown to many burned investors and customers that it is lacking in both. There are many other excellent profitable solar energy companies to invest in already such as Carmanah, Xantrex, Evergreen and Spheral.
March 20th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
Yes, when your books reek so badly that your CFO not only feels compelled to resign, but to backdate his resignation to distance himself from the financials, it’s no wonder that you have trouble raising money. And Arise hasn’t sold two years worth of production. It has non-binding letters of intent that don’t even set out a price. It hasn’t actually sold anything.