Seed Money for Green Ventures -Save The Earth!

NY Times ^ | 6/22/05 | GARY RIVLIN

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

Ira Ehrenpreis may be a kind of prophet advocating investments in alternative energy companies, but don't accuse him of being noble.

In recent months Mr. Ehrenpreis, a venture capitalist at Technology Partners in Palo Alto, Calif., has been asked any number of times to speak to audiences about "clean tech," a term that encompasses such things as solar energy, water purification systems and alternative automotive fuels.

He begins and ends every speech the same way: with a slide that stresses that to the extent his motivations are tinged green, it has to do with the color of money.

In Silicon Valley these days, more venture capitalists are following Mr. Ehrenpreis's lead. They are driven in part by the high price of oil, which hovered around $59 a barrel on Tuesday, and the vast unmet demand for electricity in China and India.

"The reason we're allocating dollars to this sector is we think we can deliver attractive returns," said Mr. Ehrenpreis, who also serves as co-chairman of the advisory board of the Cleantech Venture Network. "It's not because we want to do great things for the environment or great things for the world," though he adds that that is a "great byproduct."

That message is resonating with venture capitalists and individual investors in the Valley, where growing rich through doing good is considered the ideal.

Top venture firms on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, Calif., are beginning to show serious interest in the alternative energy sector, though that typically means venturing outside their core expertise. They hope to capitalize on the growing worldwide demand for energy at a time of rising energy costs, and they see potential for huge profits in technology that can address challenges like climate change and dwindling natural resources...

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Earth First!