renewable energy Archives

Senator Markey addresses the formal-wear only crowd at the JFK Library during Clean Energy Week in November.

An annual event in Boston punches up the fact that we have an incredible cleantech cluster-New England Clean Energy Council’s annual Green Tie Gala.

Although this event took place back during Clean Energy Week in November, I was reminded of it when out in Denver recently.  Denver has some great stuff going for it.  NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab), University of Colorado with multiple campuses in Denver and Boulder that have significant funding from both Federal and State agencies, and a history of technology oriented companies, albeit with a heavy emphasis on telecom (Qwest, Level 3).

However, what there isn’t as much of in Denver is what some call the “ecosystem.” Others call it the “cluster.” This is a body of people who hold different but overlapping responsibilities in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and whose fusion is its wellspring–

• Academics: These are those most often with the new disruptive technology or science breakthrough that serves as the seed of a new company
• Business entrepreneurs: those who have experience taking the seed of an idea, and building a company around it
• Investors: The first friends & family, then angel investors, and often venture capitalists or corporate strategic investors who pour money into these new ideas to fund the business entrepreneurs scale the disruptive idea
• Professional services providers: These are often the “connectors” in the ecosystem. They’re comprised of lawyers, accountants, executive search consultants, and start-up advisors. They act as the glue between the prior three categories, more often than not introducing one to another, supporting the growth of these companies with their area of specialty

[Footnote: If you compare Boston to Silicon Valley however, Boston is shallower in large technology and sciences companies that serve to spawn "runners" to new start-up companies.   The biotech industry is perhaps better in Boston at doing this than the pure technology industry in the last decade, with a growing base of larger biotech and pharma companies including Genzyme, Cubist, Biogen and Sepracor.  Medical devices companies also fair better in many ways to large tech, with Boston Scientific, ThermoFisher, and Perkin Elmer.  In technology hardware and software, beyond EMC, there are precious few large technology companies left in Massachusetts. ]

Details on the Gala?  This year’s Green Tie Gala was held at the JFK Memorial Library in Boston (last year was held at the Museum of Science).    There are many organizations in the innovation sector here in Massachusetts that have done a good job at galvanizing a broad cross section of constituents, including the Mass Biotech Council, as well as MITX (formerly MIMC), and the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, or TiE Boston (Indus Entrepreneurs).  However, we’ve had yet to participate in a gathering of any that approaches that of the cleantech cluster here in New England.

Senator Markey gave the opening address to punctuate the cocktail hour.  To a person it seemed, everyone knew everyone.  Yes there were a few outsiders (a small contingent from the UK had come over as part of a trade mission coordinated with Clean Energy Week in Massachusetts because of its target rich calendar), yet all of these were welcomed by the larger fold, and the gathering seemed to virtually breathe together as some sort of larger unified body, a cluster with so few degrees of separation that walking from group to group or table to table was akin to going back to your high school reunion…. You knew at least half those sitting at every table.  For those who have experienced the annual Nantucket Conference, it is this atmosphere if intimacy and familiarity that presides.

To cap the night off, venture capitalist Chuck McDermott of Rockport Capital led his band in an after-hours session that continued the beat of familiarity both given its leader as well as in its musical selection (Chuck stating that the band only plays “songs popularized before 1960″).

Chuck McDermott, leading cleantech venture capitalist at Rockport, moonlighting as 50's music band leader

I had the opportunity to be out in Denver for the 22^nd Annual National Renewable Energy Lab’s (NREL) Growth Forum.  As many know, the U.S. has more than half a dozen national labs, some of the best known being Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia.  These labs are scattered across the U.S., and each often has a specific focus (nuclear research for instance is what has kept the National Labs in the public eye most often).

Given the Obama Administration’s commitment to renewable energy and innovation, it was an upbeat gathering.    The attendee list was well-balanced between entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and academics.  Geographically, the majority of attendees either hailed from the Colorado area (with Boulder as the epicenter for cleantech in CO despite the NREL lab being located in Golden, CO), the West Coast (Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture investors), and New England (Boston-skewed).

What was surprising is how small the renewable energy community truly is.  It’s still a very close knit group.  And the community tends to shift from one location to another to pursue the next opportunity to contribute to the national cleantech ecosystem.  Two notable examples are Tod Perry, who now is the Program Manager of the Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Center for NREL.  Tod had originally started as a cleantech entrepreneur 5 years ago in Boston, pioneering a water purification technology, and a contestant in the first Ignite Clean Energy Competition in 2005.  Another Bostonian who’s moved out to Colorado recently is Trent Yang, formerly a principal at Globespan Venture Partners, now Director, Entrepreneurship and Business Development at RASEI in Boulder (Renewable and Sustainable energy institute), part of the University of Colorado commitment to innovation in the renewable energy sector in the Rocky Mountain region.  Other notable Bostonians sited at the conference included Peter Rothstein of New England Clean Energy Council, Bob Metcalfe of Polaris, and Chris Hobson, CEO of BandGap Engineering.

While out there, stopped by the Finals for the Cleantech Open’s Rocky Mountain Finals.  New Sky Energy, Rivertop Renewables, and SunTrac Solar were the winners, now headed to the Cleantech Open Finals for all 3 regions up in Silicon Valley.

For more on the winners, see http://www.metrodenver.org/news-center/metro-denver-news/mayor-hickenlooper-announces-cleantech-open-winners.html

Below is the hyperlink to our latest CEO peers “speed-survey,” exclusively for growth-stage CEOs.  Topic– “Preparing for Recovery?”

http://surveys.polldaddy.com/s/D3642F14267CCC14/

We at BSG Team Ventures periodically take the temperature of the markets we serve. This speed survey is no more than 10 questions, simple multiple-choice.

Knowledge is power.  Aggregated peer-provided knowledge is “actionable power.”

We make an effort to survey only those who fit the category (in this case, sitting CEOs or board member/founders of technology/science-driven growth-stage companies). [Note, if you don't fit the aforementioned description, please refrain from responding.]

Feel free to forward to the qualified CEOs in your sphere of influence.  The more data generated, the more accurate the trend lines.

All responses are anonymous due to the web-based survey technology employed.

We will forward the survey results within the next two weeks to the email address on file.  Please let us know if there is another email address you wish us to send the results to as well.

As the Chair of the Ignite Clean Energy Competition (www.ignitecleanenergy.com), over the last 2 months I’ve had the opportunity to travel up and down the East Coast to Raleigh-Durham, NC/Research Triangle Park, Boston, New York City, Upstate New York (Ithaca & Rochester for Cornell and RIT), New Haven (Yale), Washington, DC, and Hanover, NH (Dartmouth), and Silicon Valley/the Bay area, not to mention several locally here in Boston (Harvard, the Clean Energy Conference, etc.)

It has been a wonderful opportunity to see whether the excitement about the renewable energy sector is as fervent in other geographies as it is here in Boston.  I’m pleased to report that in short, the answer is yes.  Students, professionals, scientists, technologists are all thinking about how they can contribute, in what ways can they lever their skills and experience to help solve the world’s energy problems.    Down in RTP, North Carolina, there were more than 130 in attendance with standing room only for a panel around renewable energy, and the ICE competition (http://www.cednc.org/event/38).   In each location we participated, there was passion & interest around fostering innovation in the cleantech sector.   One of the most popular questions that consistently comes up surrounds the uncertainty of exactly how to define the sector.  As we also have a cleantech practice area here at BSG Team Ventures, one of the better industry segmentations we’ve seen comes courtesy of www.greentechmedia.com.  For all those visual learners like me, thought it might be worth republishing here:

Genus-species in the cleantech sector

ICE is headed to the UK / England for yet another kick off event March 3rd at Oxford University.  And for anyone who wants to get involved as a mentor, contestant, volunteer, or potential judge, go to http://younoodle.com/groups/ignite_clean_energy_ice and join the group of sustainable energy innovators.    To get further educated and excited, visit our home page at www.bostonsearchgroup.com and click the “video tab” in the lower righthand corner for a 90-second Highlights video of last year’s ICE Finals event that took place in May, 2008, with winner FloDesign (www.flodesign.org).