Quick lesson for anyone who isn't sure what Venture Capital is, for those of you who do just skip ahead. From Wikipedia-
"Venture capital is a type of private equity capital typically provided to early-stage, high-potential, growth companies in the interest of generating a return through an eventual realization event such as an IPO or trade sale of the company. Venture capital investments are generally made as cash in exchange for shares in the invested company.
Venture capital typically comes from institutional investors and high net worth individuals and is pooled together by dedicated investment firms."
My point to posting this is that one way to find green investment ideas is to take a look at what types of green companies venture capital dollars have been flowing towards. An article I found written by David R. Baker from the San Francisco Chronicle indicates that nearly 46% of the money invested in green technology in 2008 went to solar power companies.
Flow of Venture Capital for Green Tech Companies
What this means is rather large investors are betting large portions of their wealth on solar power becoming a widely used energy source moving forward. It would behoof any investor to take a look at adding a company from that energy sector to their portfolio.
One other opportunity I would like to mention is the same article goes on to talk about the shift in investment from the biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel to the synthetic biology fuel produced from algae. Take a look at this article posted on greenchipstocks.com written this past summer.
There are several companies listed towards the bottom of the article which are worth keeping an eye on for a possible future investment.
