May 15, 2008, 7:16 pm EST
The California Clean Tech Open (CCTO) stands out as one of the biggest business plan competitions around. Each year, researchers from some of the most prestigious labs in the country meet with entrepreneurs who can dream up ways to turn their work into gold. Out of 45-50 finalists in the CCTO start-up boot camp, five winners receive cash and professional services totaling around $100,000 each, but each finalist comes out with a fully fleshed out business plan and a lot of valuable connections. (You can enter this year’s competition here.) The competition began with a bunch of MIT alumni getting together to drink and discuss how to save the world for fun and profit. Mike Santullo, who had founded and sold the company that grew into Yahoo! Mail, was a regular at these sessions and in 2005, he and Marc Gottschalk decided that they would find ways do just that. Eschewing […]
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May 15, 2008, 4:08 pm EST
There has been plenty of noise lately about residential solar financing strategies, like SolarCity’s lease program and Sun Run’s power purchase agreements, in which a consumer agrees to buy power from solar panels on their roof without paying the hefty up-front cost for them. San Francisco may be entering into a similar deal next month for a 5-megawatt installation within the city limits, which would be the country’s third-largest completed project. The idea of small municipal power plants, built on unused land within cities and thus lowering transmission costs for the power, is quickly gaining popularity in the solar industry. Electricity utilities are also in favor of the idea, because it could save them from the need to build more costly power plants. However, cities and solar panel manufacturers face a challenge in getting projects going, because installations are expensive. San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission has nimbly avoided that […]
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May 15, 2008, 2:26 pm EST
Here’s the latest action: Dell wants greener PCs (now if only their customers did too) — The computer maker says its laptops and desktops should consume 25 percent less energy by 2010. But the Wall Street Journal notes that Dell has an uphill battle in its effort to become the self-proclaimed “greenest IT company”, because many IT departments think environmentally-friendly computers are too expensive. Atari releases exercise game system to compete with Nintendo’s — The new Wii Fit isn’t the only option for gamers who want to get in shape without leaving the comfort of their living rooms. Atari plans to release Family Trainer, a product for the Wii, this fall. It’s being billed as a simplified Wii Fit; players use an interactive floor mat for outdoor games like river rafting and log jumping. Mozilla shares a few details about data collection project — As the company tries to […]
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May 15, 2008, 5:18 am EST
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May 15, 2008, 2:33 am EST
Where is technology headed? The Churchill Club of Silicon Valley just wrapped up one of its most anticipated events: the Annual Top Ten Tech Trends Debate. Five well-known and opinionated venture capitalists weighed in on what trends will take flight and what trends will fizzle out in the months ahead. (The VCs are pictured, from left to right: Steve Jurvetson, Vinod Khosla, Josh Kopelman, Roger McNamee, Joe Schoendorf.) The audience of around 300 people was asked whether it agreed or disagreed with the VCs’ predictions. I’ve ranked them below, according to how well they were accepted by the audience. Last year’s predicted trends included a shakeout of Web 2.0 companies and the rising economic power of Brazil, Russia, India and China. Trend 1: Customer data stored by different service providers will be combined to create more intelligent services. Josh Kopelman, managing partner at First Round Capital, a seed-stage venture fund, who founded online […]
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May 15, 2008, 2:33 am EST
The Churchill Club of Silicon Valley just wrapped up one of its most anticipated events: the Annual Top Ten Tech Trends Debate. Five well-known and opinionated venture capitalists weighed-in on the million-dollar question: What trends will take flight and what trends will fizzle out in the months ahead? (The VCs are pictured, from left to right: Steve Jurvetson, Vinod Khosla, Josh Kopelman, Roger McNamee, Joe Schoendorf.) The audience of around 300 people was asked whether it agreed or disagreed with the VCs’ predictions. Last year’s predicted trends included a shakeout of Web 2.0 companies and the rising economic power of Brazil, Russia, India and China. Trend maker 1: Steve Jurvetson, managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson and well-known for his founding investment in Hotmail. Trend: There will be a booming market for healthy aging technologies that allow people in their 60s and beyond to continue working and living a good life. […]
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May 14, 2008, 6:08 pm EST
It seems like a good idea, at first: Pipe carbon dioxide emissions from power plants or industrial processes through water containing algae, and the algae will absorb the CO2 for its own growth, in turn being harvested to make biodiesel. But like most good ideas, the implementation has proven more than a little tricky. GreenFuel Technologies is a startup we’ve covered followed as it moved from high-flying newcomer, to apparent failure, back to spotlight darling. The “apparent failure” part began with problems in scaling. GreenFuel’s plan appears to work fine on a small scale, but when it tried to do a commercial-size project last year, the algae over-performed to the point of killing itself off, doubling costs and leading to layoffs of 50 people. Instead of letting the company crumble, one of its investors, Polaris Venture Partners, sent in general partner Bob Metcalfe for emergency resuscitation. The move […]
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May 14, 2008, 3:17 pm EST
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May 14, 2008, 5:38 am EST
The chemicals business has gone through massive shifts in the past, and it’s high time for another one, according to Christopher Gann, the CEO of Genomatica, who recently left a cushy position at industry giant Dow Chemical for the startup. Chemical manufacturing is perched atop the much larger fossil fuel market, thus suffering from the same high prices the rest of the world does — but, says Gann, it can be weaned off hydrocarbons. Shifting away from oil and gas is one of the most common stories in cleantech, with numerous companies claiming that they can make transportation fuels from renewable sources like corn, sugar and grasses. By contrast, chemical manufacturing has received relatively little attention, despite the fact that most chemical manufacturing is also based on crude oil and natural gas, going through stepped processes to reach the desired end product. Part of the reason is […]
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May 14, 2008, 2:38 am EST
BrightSource Energy, an Oakland, Calif., solar thermal startup, has landed a hefty $115 million funding round from investors including Google to develop its solar power tower technology. Solar thermal technology is one the leading hopes for alternative energy. It uses like mirrors and lenses to boil water, the steam of which is harnessed to generate electricity. This third round was led by Google.org, VantagePoint Venture Partners, BP Alternative Energy, Statoil Hydro Venture and Black River; returning investors included DBL Investors, Draper Fischer Jurvetson and Chevron Technology Ventures. The company has now raised $160 million. The company recently signed a massive contract with PG&E to supply it with up to 900 megawatts from its plants, whose construction will begin in 2009. Its Distributed Power Tower (DPT) technology is basically an array consisting of thousands of small mirrors, called heliostats, which concentrate sunlight on a single point — in this case, a boiler chamber mounted […]
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