Six or seven years ago the broader venture capital community took an interest in energy as a category for venture capital investing. Storied venture capitalist like John Doerr and Vinod Khosla began to give speeches, raised lots of capital and put down some bets. Many firms were already making sizeable investments but not the headliners. The idea that energy might be "cool" began to percolate into the ethos of Silicon Valley. So why did this begin to happen, where are we today, and most importantly, where do we go from here.

How did energy become a hot investment area?

Hard to recall exactly what were the hot investment sectors six years ago, but for venture capital technology was not a hot investment sector. Healthcare was still hanging on as a good market for investments but not going gangbusters, either. Entrepreneurs and some VCs noticed the rising public discussion about climate change. In the news, for example, was the Kyoto Protocol adopted by the world was now in force in February 2005. The IPCC, a world-based organization founded in 1988, which few people knew or cared much about issued a report in 2007 sounding the alarm bell on[...]

[Published in GreenNews - Read the original article]