PRINT THIS PAGE Cleantech venture investment reaches record $2bn in second quarter10/07/2008. Source: AltAssets. 
Cleantech venture investment in North America, Europe, China and India has reached a record $2bn in Q2 2008, according to The Cleantech Group. The $2bn were invested across 96 companies. The previous record quarter was Q3 2007, which saw $1.8bn invested. The Q2 2008 total represented a 58 per cent increase over the same period a year ago and was 48 per cent up from Q1 2008.
'Interest in cleantech continues to show robust growth, despite the impact of economic headwinds and continued credit market constraints,' said John Balbach, managing partner, Cleantech Group. 'The combination of a strengthening pipeline of promising new innovations, steady progress in scaling growth stage companies and improving demand-side pull are leaning towards 2008 outperforming the banner 2007 record performance.'
Investments in solar technologies and second-generation biofuels drove the Q2 2008 results. Solar thermal companies eSolar, BrightSource Energy, SkyFuel, Infinia and Sopogy raised a total of $278m in venture capital in the second quarter. Combined with the $100m acquisition of Stirling Energy Systems by NTR and the $165m in venture capital raised by Solel, Infinia and eSolar in the first quarter of this year, solar thermal companies have raised $543m this year.
Second-generation biofuel companies (which do not rely on food crops as a feedstock) Range Fuels, Sapphire Energy, EdeniQ, Mascoma, Aurora BioFuels, Gevo, Fulcrum Bioenergy, Greenline Industries, GreenFuel Technologies and Amyris Biotechnologies raised a combined $280m in venture investment in Q2 2008. Of this total, $136m was invested in cellulosic ethanol start-ups and $84m in algae biomass start-ups, including a $50m round for Sapphire Energy.
'For the first time, algae companies are attracting large, follow-on investment rounds - a trend we expect to continue into the second half of the year,' said Brian Fan, senior director of research for the Cleantech Group. 'This break-out quarter for solar thermal and algae companies indicates a growing appetite for clean technologies that can replace coal for electricity generation and oil for transportation fuels.'
US companies received a record $1.49bn in 54 financing rounds, accounting for approximately 74 per cent of the Q2 2008 total. Canadian companies received $40m in two investments.
European companies (including Israeli companies) recorded $257m in 31 disclosed financing rounds, accounting for approximately 13 per cent of the total. UK companies received the most capital, with $86m invested in 17 companies.
Chinese companies raised $235m in venture capital across six rounds, accounting for approximately 12 per cent of the total, while Indian companies raised $11.1m in venture investments across three rounds, accounting for approximately 0.6 per cent of the quarter's total.
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