$100 million Canadian cleantech fund in the works
Ottawa-area venture capital firm Venture Coaches is preparing to launch a $100 million cleantech fund committed to investment in Canadian companies. According to the firm, the new fund will focus on companies engaged in the research, design, development and manufacture of “energy efficient materials; components; sub-systems, systems and solutions for energy management; and innovative technologies improving fundamental processes with respect to energy and waste stream reductions.”
Money for the fund is in the process of being raised and a spokesman for Venture Coaches said the company is confident it will meet its $100 million goal.
Venture Coaches has been around since 2001, with its first fund focusing on information technology and telecommunications companies. Its new fund, appropriately called the Canadian Cleantech Fund, will be welcome in a country that tends to take a conservative approach to early-stage investing, particularly in the Canadian cleantech sector, where U.S. venture capitalists are beginning to realize there are quality deals to be had.
UPDATE: Here’s an article with some more details.
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.
September 21st, 2007 at 9:40 pm
I’m so glad to hear about this, although it is embarrassing that we as Canadians have to rely on private capital for energy research. Just this week the government of Canada got in trouble for its non-handling of the Kyoto Accord. See this press release: Canada Breaks Global Warming Law
Canada is supposed to be a world leader, hopefully one day we’ll get a proper leader.
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:27 am
Pretty interesting Enviro Info there:
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