Khosla Ventures, one of the most active venture capital firms that invests in cleantech companies, raised a $1.05 billion fund for further investments.
The Khosla Ventures IV fund will invest in cleantech, IT, mobile, and Internet technology in roughly the same ratio as previous funds.
"We have identified the ‘Clean Dozen’ companies in cleantech that can achieve unsubsidized market competitiveness," says founder Vinod Khosla.
The venture capital firm is interested in supporting breakthrough clean technology areas such as bio-refineries for energy and bioplastics, solar and batteries.
Three biofuels and biochemical portfolio companies have had successful recent IPOs: Amyris (Nasdaq:AMRS); Gevo (Nasdaq: GEVO); and KiOR (Nasdaq: KIOR).
"We fundamentally invest in the companies that we expect to have significant impact," says Khosla. "We don’t mind failing but do care that the impact be material if we do succeed; and we believe that our willingness to fail gives us an ability to succeed. We will continue to not compute IRR’s when investing as we believe in helping entrepreneurs build companies with high impact and high option value that are not subject to traditional financial metrics."
"In clean tech, our IPO’s and other exits that have generated almost a billion dollars in profits personify this strategy," he continues. "Instead of following the herd strategy of investing where others are investing, we continue to try and originate new areas. We will also continue to attempt new strategies in venture by providing more venture assistance to companies such as putting together an operational group. We are not in the venture capital business. We are in the venture assistance business."
Vinod Khosla founded the firm in 2004 – he was formerly a General Partner at Kleiner Perkins and founder of Sun Microsystems.
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The authenticity of what’s really going on here is refreshing. And being of assistance and having a noble focus is good too. I hope you continue to succeed.
Oklahoma has one of the highest solar day potentials of any state not already significantly funded in solar, and it needs help getting to a critical mass. It needs a foundation to educate middle school and high school students in the benefits of solar, but also Oklahoma needs businesses and industry manufacturers to hold Conferences and Seminars in Oklahoma City, so that the core people who want to form Solar power companies can get together with potential angel investors so that something good can be built in Oklahoma, the land of fossil fuel control. The ROI is already clear, the problem for most Oklahomans is solar financing, so work on that angle before any other. There are plenty of installers nearby, but financing will make the market huge, and the ROI might break the 10 year mark finally…