Lightspeed Venture Partners, a venture capital firm that has made a number of cleantech investments, has released a list of five cleantech predictions for 2009. The predictions are listed below — the firm's blog contains more information associated with each prediction:
- Cleantech funding will slow significantly, forcing startups to seek alternative growth strategies
- Companies will come under increased pressure to achieve competitive cost economics
- Investor interest in energy storage, especially for automotive and grid-scale applications, to grow strongly
- Government will play larger role in cleantech, as policymakers around the country increase their support
- Cleantech comes of age in China
In addition, below is a presentation from Andrew Chung, Principal at Lightspeed Venture Partners, that provides an overview of cleantech venture capital investing and Lightspeed's investments in this sector (click image to view presentation):