Clean Energy Venture’s strong management and proven track record successfully raised its first fund
Boston based Clean Energy Ventures (CEV) announced the closure of its first fund on October 15, 2019. The $110M Clean Energy Venture Fund targets early-stage advanced energy startups in North America.
“After more than a decade of investing in the advanced energy sector, it’s been gratifying that this first fund, which is focused on investments that address climate risks, was significantly oversubscribed. It’s really indicative not only of investors’ appetite for innovation in these sectors, but also of the new normal in which this kind of funding is possible without compromising return on investment. Investors are clearly seeing that increasing commercial adoption of advanced energy innovations is creating opportunities to earn attractive risk-adjusted returns.”
Daniel Goldman, Managing Director at CEV
The three principals — David S. Miller, Daniel Goldman, and Temple Fennell — deliver advanced electricity and technology startup experience, and over 40 decades of combined seed and early phase investing expertise. Their successful track record of investing in 30+ early-stage innovative energy firms comprises multiple exits, for example MyEnergy (obtained by Nest, then obtained by Alphabet affiliate Google), and more recently, Pika Energy (obtained by Generac). The firm leverages their network of strategic and financial investors that have co-invested or followed-on in lots of the principals’ previous investments.
CEV’s investment strategy is centered on low-cost, capital-efficient innovative energy technology alternatives with potential to greatly reduce emissions. The fund has made seven investments in grid-edge connectivity and advanced metering, innovative materials and production procedures related to carbon fiber composites and silicon-based solar wafers, residential and industrial energy efficiency, and intelligent grid detectors and software.
“Unique among investors in the clean energy space, we’ll continue to focus on early stage advanced energy entrepreneurs with disruptive hardware and materials technology solutions and capital-light business models that have the potential to massively scale. That thesis continues to generate extraordinary interest for co-investment and acquisition by an increasingly broad array of energy and industrial sector incumbents seeking new business opportunities and low-carbon solutions to their operations. Our intention is to take significant steps towards realizing our ultimate goal of growing companies to scale and having a material impact on greenhouse gas emissions.”
Daniel Goldman, Managing Director at CEV
CEV’s Strategic Advisory Board is chaired by former United States Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and includes Ellen Williams, former Chief Scientist of British Petroleum, and J. Michael McQuade, former Chief Technology Officer of United Technologies. The Venture Partners team holds over advanced degrees from MIT, Harvard, Cornell, Yale and other leading academic institutions and has been instrumental in creating and supporting the clean energy ecosystem.
