Just today, the National Venture Capital Association released its VC investment survey for the third quarter.
Three organizations reporting, three widely different reports
Clean tech? Up 89 percent from the second quarter to $898 million. That is still down 17 percent from last year, but a heck of a lot better than the $415 million reported last week by Dow Jones VentureSource.
And both are a world away from the $1.59 billion that the Cleantech Group said early this month was invested by venture capitalists worldwide during the three months.
All three groups bring reputable firepower to help collect the numbers. The Cleantech Group uses Deloitte while the NVCA harnesses the services of PricewaterhouseCoopers and Thomson Reuters. Dow Jones, of course, relies on the corporate counting skills of Dow Jones.
So what explains the differences? Likely a matter of definition over what to categorize as clean tech v. high tech or biotech. The three disciplines are increasingly colliding. So who should readers believe? How about an average of the three? That would equate to $967 million invested in 71 startups (an average of the NVCA’s 57, VentureSources’s 23 and Cleantech Group’s 134).
Still a bit of an uptick from the second quarter and sign of a slowly mending business.
Here are the top four clean-tech deals for the quarter from the NVCA (see all the details on the organization’s web site): Solyndra of Fremont, CA, $286 million; Tesla Motors of San Carlos, CA, $82.5 million; Serious Materials of Sunnyvale, CA, $60 million; and Kosmos Energy of Dallas, $56.5 million.
