Big VC $$$ Available for Clean Tech

From Business 2.0. Now, how about some Sacramento-area companies step up and use some of this money here!

Clean Cash: Technology Partners Raises $300 Million Fund

The green tech investment boom continues, with Silicon Valley venure capital firm Technology Partners announcing this morning that it has raised $300 million for its latest fund. The cash will be invested in clean tech and life sciences startups.

"We think the convergence between life sciences and clean tech represents the next wave of opportunity," Ira Ehrenpreis, a general partner at Technology Partners, told Green Wombat. To Ehrenpreis, a leading green tech guru (or "cleantech" in the nomenclature preferred by some valley VCs), that means everything from bioengineering new biofuels to deploying advanced material sciences to develop new drug delivery systems.

The new fund has already invested in electric car company Tesla Motors, NFocus Neuromedical, which is developing technology to treat brain aneurysms, and laser hair-removal startup SpectraGenics.

The Palo Alto firm's lastest fund has also invested in a "stealth solar company" that Ehrenpreis declined to identify in any way. It's de rigeur these days to ask whether the big bucks being poured into such ventures herald a green tech bubble a la the dot-com bubble of yesteryear. Sure, some people will inevitably lose their shirts but the global warming-driven political and regulatory changes spurring such investments are unlikely to subside anytime soon. "I think this is just the beginning of another industrial revolution," says Ehrenpreis.