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Funding

Harvard Grabs $10M To Build Robo Bees

by Jason Wilk on October 8, 2009

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  • It’s not quite Richie Rich yet, but hold on Macaulay Culkin because Harvard is set to recreate a real life version of  Robo Bees from the movie. Harvard researchers have received a $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation to spawn an army of robot bees, reports Network World. The RoboBee project is slated to span 5 years, and, according to the Harvard RoboBee Web site, could not only provide insight about how to mimic the collective behavior and intelligence of a typical bee community, but also lead to further advances in the electrical engineering and construction of micro flying devices. If all goes according to plan, the robotic bees will be able to fly on their own, and work cooperatively with each other to coordinate hive business, just like the real thing. (via)

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The State Of Venture Capital With Farhad Mohit

by Jason Wilk on February 2, 2009

  • A couple days ago, I wrote on the state of the venture capital ecosystem in regards to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture funds, raising annex funds for its eleventh (2004) and twelfth funds (2006). The round was in order to have cash on hand in case it needs additional follow-on capital. My thoughts were that this news potentially shows that limited partners and VC’s may see an end to the crisis in the near future and that times weren’t really as tough as they seemed until LPs started asking for their money back. Farhad Mohit, BizRate and Shopzilla founder had this to say to me on the issue:

Remember that VCs make their money from a ~2% management fee (for the whole fund under management) and a percentage of profits generated. So, they are loathe to return any money under management because it is “sure income” for them. However, if the “Good Times” are truly at an end, as some VCs have speculated, then what are they telling their Limited Partners (investors) as the reason for holding onto their money and charging a management fee?

So, asking VCs whether the good times are over, just gets you the biased perspective of “buyers” telling you what they think the market looks like. Note, they have every incentive to tell you (entrepreneurs) that times are tough, valuations should be lowered and that you should take whatever offer then give you.

However, until I see money being returned to the LPs for lack of investment opps, my guess is that they’re telling their investors a different story…

More like: Times are tough, but with our BS “Fearmongering” presentations we’ve scared entreps into lowering their valuations to a point where we are seeing incredible investment opportunities, blah blah blah (where blah blah blah basically = “so let us keep investing your money and earning our 2% fee).

  • In retrospect, I have to agree with Farhad, but will a VC give the money back? Consider this; A VC who loses confidence or interest in a company can choose to cease new investments in that company and get diluted, or give the money back. But why would they? An LP who loses confidence in a VC fund technically still faces a legal obligation to continue meeting their capital calls. At best, they face losing all their capital. At worst, they have no choice but to throw good money after (perceived) bad. (EarlyStageVC). So as VC’s continue to live off of fumes (the average return is lower than a government bond, with a much higher magnitude of risk), will they continue to raise new funds, continue to take their 2% (and 20-30% of profits) in the belief that the good times are around the bend, or will they concede? With the overcrowded market, it seems that the life of the VC cannot live on as they once have before. It has been 11 years since the venture industry has returned more cash than it has plowed into investments, according to the National Venture Capital Association. The industry is now managing $257 billion, up from $64 billion in 1997. The general sentiment in the market since it has crashed is to avoid putting money into an industry than hasn’t turned a profit in that amount of time. So, the question now may be less of when will they give it back, as when will the VC’s run out of money, starting the long awaited industry shakedown? If there was any year to have it happen, 2009 seems appropriate. Look out.

    • (Image Via Forbes)

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QA Search Takes Center Stage For 09

by Jason Wilk on January 26, 2009

  • There’s no doubt about it, ‘Question and Answer’ based search is finally going to find a home in the US for 09′. The concept was originally made a phenomenon by South Korea’s No.1 search engine, Naver. This year, we have seen quick success with Mahalo launching their take on the service, Mahalo Answers, and now mobile QA search company ChaCha has just raised $30M to continue their strong growth.
  • Although two different platforms, Mahalo Answers and ChaCha will run into eachother at some point down the road. Mahalo recently enabled a way for anyone to email Answers@mahalo.com (member or not), and crowdsourced answers will be mailed back for free. ChaCha users (no membership needed) SMS their question to 242242 and receive an answer back from am outsourced ‘guide’ getting paid per response. Standard SMS fees involved plus your text back includes a text-ad. I have been using both services, and I find ChaCha to be more convenient on the go due to speed, however on the standard web, I find myself using Mahalo Answers a few times a week for random questions I don’t have the time to search for.
  • In a perfect world of speedy, quality responses, would QA based search become your preference?

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Screenshots And Analysis Of Blackberry’s Storefront

by Jason Wilk on January 19, 2009

  • RIM has released official images of their Blackberry application center, the Blackberry Storefront. RIM is yet another mobile manufacturer who thinks a standard platform that allows third-party developers in to sell applications is going to solve everything for the company. Palm has just released their plans of having a platform for third party developers, Android already has theirs (with paid apps coming soon), and several others are planned to be released this year.
  • Research In Motion is looking to launch their store in the next 6 weeks, and it took a major step forward when it started accepting applications from app writers to be included in the launch. Blackberry has a few apps already, but have been widely disliked thus far. Apps like Facebook for the Blackberry aren’t nearly as intuitive and functional as they are on the iPhone.
  • Some worry that because of the Blackberry lineup of phones, some developers will be turned off. The Storm’s ‘half-push, half-touch’ screen make it difficult to mimic games already popular for some developers on the iPhone who are interested in testing out another platform. Also, the Blackberry Curve and Bold both have standard non-touch QWERTY keyboards with scroll balls, another turnoff for potential developers not only for non-compatibility, but overall lack of intuitiveness. Apple is currently King of app developers and sales. They just passed the 500 million app download mark this past week. RIM will be succesfful if they can recruit 1/3 of the amount of developers using iPhone’s SDK. They are off to a decent start however, offering a special VC fund to help find developers and grow apps for its platform.
  • Do you think other manufacturer’s can compete with Apple in the standard platform market? Does RIM stand a chance with their phone lineup? I think Android Market will be the only real competitor to Apple’s store and that RIM doesn’t stand a chance beyond the no-brainer apps you expect to see on their phones.

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Solar 2009 Met With Conflicting Expectations, Lots Of Layoffs

by David Heyerman on January 14, 2009

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  • Since I wrapped up the Solar Sector in 2008, there’s been a a steady stream of new 2009 announcements coming out of the same companies covered before.  The wires have been, for the most part, unfortunately flooded with negative expectations from research analysts pushing to sell, plants shutting down, and workers being laid off.
  • First Solar, SunPower, Yingli Green Energy, Suntech Power, JA Solar, and Evergreen Solar all saw quick share price increases early last week.  Now, they’re all down to below where they were on the 1st.  Some analysts are pushing the sell because of an expected lowering of solar panel and module prices over the next year.  In fact, Christopher Blansett, from JP Morgan was unapologetically urging investors to sell solar stocks because of this expectation.
  • Evergreen Solar announced the closing of their Marlboro, Mass. plant.  Although, they expect “continued progress” at another plant, they’ll be hit pretty hard as shutting down the plant will have cost the company upwards of $30 million from Q4 2008, into 2009.
  • Suntech Power had some mixed news with a huge milestone, raising their Wuxi factory production capacity of photovoltaic cells and modules to 1 GW.  This is a huge achievement, considering 2007’s output of 540 MW.  CEO of Suntech, Zhengrong Shi, is expecting an oversupply of polysilicon this year, which could potentially cut their prices 20-30 percent from 3rd quarter 2008.  On the other side of things, Steve Chadima, vice president of external affairs has announced that 800 people or 10% of their workforce were cut in the fourth quarter of 2008.
  • Workforce cuts have seemingly been widespread in the solar industry, with layoff announcements from Day4Energy, GT Solar, Emcore, Ausra, and Advanced Energy.  Even OptiSolar laid off 300 employees because of a lack of funding.
  • On the positive side of things, the Federal Bureau of Land Management has seen a huge jump in the amount of applications they’re receiving for solar energy projects. The number of applications rose from 125 to 223, a 78% increase since July.  All the applications were for projects over 10MW in capacity and were located in California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado.
  • So on one hand, we have this industry that is experiencing such incredibly growth as far as technology and necessity goes, but on the other hand we have this pesky little thing called the economy which likes to sway industry at it’s, sometime unjustified, hand.  The only thing us investors and cleantech enthusiasts can trust is that we, as a world, need renewable energy and solar is at the forefront of that effort.  It is an unfortunate and as I mentioned before, ironic situation, but I’m still confident the future for solar is bright.  How bout you guys?

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