Cellulosic Ethanol taking off in USA

Cellulosic ethanol, the production of ethanol from a number of biomass products i.e. paper sludge, wood chips, switch grass and corn stover, is taking off in the US! Often referred to as the “holy grail” in biomass-to-ethanol, this new approach would allow to use various input sources, not just expensive corn or crops.
One of our [...]

Lilliputian Systems and MicroOptical get recognised as WEF Tech Pioneers 2007

Congratulations to two of our portfolio companies, who were nominated recently for the World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer Award 2007:
Lilliputian Systems, one of our Cleantech investments, developing micro-fuel cells for portable devices, Interview with Ken Lazarus, and
MicroOptical, providing a new “viewing” experience for digital content, Interview with Kip Kokinakis – No wonder, Paris Hilton love [...]

SAM Private Equity becomes Emerald Technology Ventures

SAM Private Equity announced yesterday, that due to the recent “merger” of Robeco and SAM Group, the private equity arm of SAM is buying out the entire private equity business to create Emerald Technologies. SAM Private Equity is one of the leading Cleantech oriented VCs managing 3 funds with a total of €250M in committed [...]

BASF fuels its product offering with Pemeas Fuel Cell Technologies

A ping by one of the people close to Pemeas Fuel Cell Technologies has alerted me to the recent announcement that BASF is buying Pemeas Full Cell Technologies, a leading company in the fuel cell business. Pemeas was founded in April 2004 as a spin-off of the former Hoechst Group’s fuel cell activities. The company [...]

Another Cleantech IPO in Germany!

Almost unnoted by many here in Germany was the recent IPO by Petrotec, a producer of bio-diesel based on renewable resources (various forms of natural or chemical substances, oil etc.). In 2005, the company delivered revenues of €40.5M and an EBITDA of €8M, and now has a market cap of €180M.

The global market for bio-diesel [...]

Mascoma – revolutionizing the Ethanol market!

Mascoma Corporation is a promising start-uptrying to become the first commercial developer of cellulosic ethanol. Atlas Venture joined the recent financingroundtogether with follow investors General Catalyst Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Vantage Point Venture Partners, and Pinnacle Ventures, as well as existinginvestors Khosla Ventures and Flagship Ventures.
Current ethanol demand today is around 4B gallons, [...]

Conergy to invest €250M in PV module plant!

What a surprise! Conergy recently announced the investment of €250M into a PV module manufacturing plant! Conergy, in the past focused on system integration, installation and distribution, now joins the ranks of the cell and module manufacturers.
Laut Unternehmensangaben vom Sonntag entsteht damit die weltweit erste vollintegrierte Massenproduktion, die vom Wafer über die Zelle bis zum [...]

Miasole – Next Generation Photovoltaic Company!

As mentioned previously, cleantech is on the rise! I am happy to announce that Atlas Venture recently completed an investment in a company called Miasolé, an investment I was personally involved with closely.
Miasole is a next-generation photovoltaic company focusing on CIGS based thin-film solar cells and modules and Atlas joins fellow venture capitalist firms such [...]

New Energy Forum – Looking for exciting presenters!

If you are into cleantech and as excited about this new emerging sector like myself, there is an interesting event coming up in December. E-Unlimited is organizing the New Energy Forum, taking place on December 5th, as part of the European Venture Summit (includes a Tech and Bio-track for those of you not so much [...]

Cleantech on the rise!

Cleantech has been on the rise for quite some time now! Investors are putting a lot of money to work in exciting areas such as photovoltaics, energy mgmt, water treatment or nanotechnologies. In addition to professional investors, governments and politicians are also acknowledging the importance of this sector. The recent decision by the European Commission [...]