Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) announced the launch of a $1 billion Green Growth Fund, to help speed mass market adoption of solutions to the world’s climate crisis.
The fund will support later-stage cleantech ventures – more mature companies that have demonstrated market traction in developing innovative, scalable solutions that address the climate crisis and promote more efficient use of natural resources. The fund will back companies in a variety of technology sectors, including alternative fuels, renewable energy and low-carbon transportation.
KPCB separately announced the formation of KPCB XIII, a $700 million fund that will invest in greentech, information technology and life sciences ventures. Within the greentech sector, KPCB XIII will mainly back early-stage entrepreneurs.
"We urgently need to advance our greentech industry at a speed and scale commensurate with the challenges we face," said KPCB Partner John Doerr. "We believe green technologies are both the key to solving our energy crisis and a tremendous business opportunity."
Green businesses are already booming in the United States and overseas, as environmental concerns and skyrocketing fossil fuel prices stimulate demand for renewable energy alternatives. At the same time, recent breakthroughs in a wide variety of scientific disciplines – biology, chemistry, and physics – are making revolutionary green technologies possible and affordable.
"The world has embarked on the next industrial revolution," KPCB Partner John Denniston commented. "The growing sense of global urgency over our twin energy crises–climate change and energy security–is now driving businesses to become green, consumers to demand green, and policymakers to drive policies to accelerate the market adoption of green products." Denniston will co-manage the new fund with Ben Kortlang, who previously co-directed alternative energy investments at Goldman Sachs.
Kortlang predicted the close relationship between the KPCB venture and growth teams will be an asset to portfolio companies of both KPCB XIII and the Green Growth Fund. "The venture and growth partners will work together as one team, in one office," he said. "There’ll be many synergies: partners dealing with the more mature companies can contribute expertise with market dynamics, financing and regulation, while those involved with startups can offer cutting-edge technology insight and policy leadership. The common denominator in both funds will be exceptional company-building skills."
The Green Growth Fund will provide its portfolio companies with both global perspective and global reach, which includes the benefit of KPCB’s Asian presence through its KPCB China Fund. The KPCB Green Growth Fund will also enable the firm to extend its existing collaboration with the London-based Generation Investment Management, whose chairman Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States and Nobel Laureate, joined KPCB as Partner last year. Through their alliance, the firms actively work together to find, fund and accelerate green solutions with the greatest potential to help solve the climate crisis.
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