capitalism

Finding the clean tech money

DAVIS, Calif.--What kind of clean tech product will thrive over the long term?

"Something that doesn't defy laws of physics, and there are plenty of those," said Rodrigo Prudencio, a partner with Nth Power LLC. The venture capital firm helped Evergreen Solar and Imperium Renewables to get off the ground.

Nobody at the AlwaysOn Going Green conference was making bold predictions about what might become the Google of green tech, but the sector is expected to continue expanding at a rapid clip.

Clean tech companies receive the third largest amount of venture capital, a staggering increase … Read more

IP telephony start-ups attract cash

Despite SunRocket's recent implosion, venture capitalists are hot to invest in voice over IP start-ups.

A company called Jaxtr announced Tuesday that it's raised $10 million. The company, which hopes to emulate the success of eBay's Skype, actually attracted some of the same investors as Skype. Draper Richards, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Mangrove Capital, all early stage investors in Skype, contributed to Jaxtr's first round of funding.

Jaxtr is one of a growing number of IP telephony start-ups hoping to make it big. These companies are leaning more toward Skype's business model as a complementary … Read more

Etsy: Over one million crafty hipsters served

Etsy, the two-year-old "eBay gone indie," has sold its millionth item, according to Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, one of the New York City start-up's investors. The company now stands at 42 employees and 300,000 registered users (both buyers, sellers, and those who dabble in both),

Click here for our video tour of Etsy Labs, the real-world space that the company opened in February.

As a side note, I'm going to give myself a pat on the back, because I guess that octopus-shaped necklace I bought from Etsy last week helped push 'em over … Read more

NowPublic is now funded

NowPublic emerged onto the Web proclaiming, "The news is Now Public." Two years later they've embraced the tagline "Crowd powered media" and managed to secure significant funding in the process. According to VentureBeat NowPublic has raised $10.6 million in capital from Rho Ventures and Rho Canada with additional capital from Brightspark and Working Opportunity Fund. VentureBeat reports:

Chief executive Leonard Brody said it was the largest first round funding for any citizen journalist site. OhmyNews, a site based in Korea but which is now international, raised $11 million in a second round of financing. … Read more

Renewables are the New Oil in at Least One Middle Eastern Oil Nation

Last year the government of Abu Dhabi made a splash in energy investment circles by anchoring a cleantech fund:

As described on News.com just two months ago:

"One of the more ambitious related projects in the Mideast is Masdar, a $250 million clean-tech investment fund unfurled last year. The government of Abu Dhabi (through Abu Dhabi Future Energy) has put $100 million into Masdar, while Credit Suisse and the Consensus Business Group have put in $100 million and $50 million, respectively. Masdar, which means "source" in Arabic, also plans to set up a think tank with … Read more

Open source: The numbers don't tell the whole story

Savio has had some interesting posts lately crunching numbers related to open source investments and, most currently, the FSF's financial ability to litigate GPLv3. In both cases, though, I think he's getting a bit too attached to the calculator and detached from reality. (Not that I ever stray from reality.... :-)

(That said, in both cases I appreciate the exercise that he walks us through. It's useful.)

With regard to the FSF's ability to litigate over GPLv3, this misses the point. The FSF has never needed to rely on litigation to enforce the GPL. That's what public pressure is all about, and the open source community can deliver that in abundance. I've yet to see it fail.… Read more

The new enemies of patent reform? You

BusinessWeek has an interesting, frightening article on patent reform. Frightening because it's the BigCos who are advocating reform and, apparently, it's the VCs and entrepreneurs who are fighting it:

Since the mid-1990s, America's largest computer and software companies have been trying to rewrite U.S. patent law. The goal was to stem the tide of patent litigation, much of it generated by inventors and small companies trying to protect their intellectual property. But each time Big Tech tried to sell Congress on reform, it ran into an even mightier constituency: Big Pharma. Drugmakers had no problem with the current system, and they had the ear of Republican leaders.… Read more

Open source investments up in Q2, notes CBR's Matthew Aslett

Matthew Aslett has the latest numbers on open source investments in Q2 2007. The bottom line? Up 33% (over the same quarter last year) to roughly $100 million. Not too shabby.

Matthew: It would be ideal if you could also report the running tally of total open source investments. We're over $2 billion now....

Prof says global warming is dangerous to your freedom

Nobody's going to like this one. Liberals will feel attacked. Libertarians will nod glumly. Conservatives will feel they're being blamed for something that hasn't happened. And those who intend to ignore climate change will continue to accuse others of a conspiracy.

Peter Wells, a researcher in Cardiff, England, has published an article warning that climate change could lead to a global, militaristic totalitarian state. Here's where you can find the article, but it will cost money to see it all. So, a brief summary: Climate change will create severe challenges to numerous nations. It may prove … Read more