Venture Capital and Research Centers
Facilitating Innovation
Benjamin J Chazen
MIT Washington Office
August 2016
Venture Capital and Research Centers: Facilitating Innovation
Introduction
Today’s venture capital system is biased towards IT/Software related fields to such
an extent that we can no longer rely on it to enable innovation and growth in clean
energy, biotech and many other non-software industries. Software has proven to be
the most reliable source of profits for venture capital firms; software startups are
suited for the venture capital model because they are easy and cheap to scale, likely
to be acquired by large tech firms and because venture capitalists have connections
and expertise in that field.1 Evidence shows that the venture capital system is simply
not equipped to fund clean energy research and bring viable clean energy solutions
to market. That the market fails to price in clean energy’s beneficial environmental
impact does not mean that we can simply ignore the challenge of investing in clean
energy solutions and bringing them to scale. In order to solve this problem, we
ought to turn out attention to private and university sponsored research centers
and startup incubators. By examining existing research centers and startup
incubators we can understand which features to replicate in MIT’s Innovation
Orchards initiative. The first section of this paper will discuss the ways in which our
venture capital system discriminates against clean energy. The second section of
this paper will present statistics on venture capital investment activity across
sectors and regions. The third section of this paper will examine three case studies
of successful research centers and startup incubators.
Section I
Thus far, venture capital investments in clean energy have proven extremely
unprofitable. From 2006-2011, venture capital firms invested heavily in clean
energy firms. There were several important factors that led to a sharp rise in
venture capital clean energy investment. Rising gas and electricity prices (gas prices
quadrupled from 1998 to 2008), Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth and energy policy
made venture capitalists believe that investment in clean energy would be
profitable and socially responsible. The opposite proved to be true. From 20062011, less than half of the $25B invested in clean energy found its way back to
investors. Ninety percent of clean energy investments failed to return 1x invested
capital and in 2008, 2009 and 2011 0% of clean energy investments returned 2x
invested capital.2 As a result of the financial crisis of 2008, a decline in oil and gas
prices, an oversupply of solar panels and Congress’ failure to pass emissionslimiting legislation, investment in clean energy declined sharply from 2008
onwards. In the absence of government action to incentivize private actors to invest
in clean energy, the laws of economics will largely prevent clean energy from
receiving private investment.
1
Locke, Richard M., and Rachel L. Wellhausen. Production in the Innovation Economy. MIT Press,
2014.
2 Gaddy, Benjamin Erik and Sivaram, Varun and Jones, Timothy Bernard and Wayman Libby, Venture
Capital and Cleantech: The Wrong Model for Energy Innovation (June 2, 2016). Available at SSRN:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2788919
Venture Capital and Research Centers: Facilitating Innovation
Further complicating matters is uncertainty regarding political and economic
changes in the clean energy policy environment. The potential for rapid change to
the political and economic framework under which clean energy operates is yet
another barrier to clean energy investment. Venture capital firms do not know
whether conditions favorable to their investments will change or remain the same.
If Congress fails to renew clean energy tax subsidies, for example, then investments
in clean energy suddenly become much riskier. Lower fossil-fuel energy prices,
often a consequence of changes in domestic policy and/or geopolitical shifts, could
make clean energy economically unviable without substantial advance notice. In an
unpredictable and rapidly changing policy environment firms are unable to trust in
the assumption that conditions favorable to their investment will remain as they
need to be.
In addition to having to navigate an unpredictable policy environment, venture
capital firms avoid clean energy projects because they require massive initial capital
investments. Solyndra, a thin-film solar panel manufacturer, required $970M in
investments prior to is IPO.3 It then proceeded to declare bankruptcy and shut down
permanently in 2011. Other high-profile cleantech failures include HelioVolt
(consuming over $200M in VC funds over 13 years) and Xunlight, a company adept
at winning tax credits and government grants but unable to scale. Typically, venture
capitalists are comfortable investing up to $40-50M in any given company before its
IPO or acquisition.4 In Q1 2016, VC firms invested a total of $12,140,064,100 in 969
companies, imputing an average investment value of approximately $12.5 million
per company.5 Using the same method to calculate the average value of venture
capital investments in the software sector yields a result of $6.37 million per
company.6 For venture capital firms a cheaper initial investment translates to a
higher equity stake and therefore also a higher risk tolerance. Most clean energy
investments, as evinced by Solyndra and other expensive cleantech failures, are
prohibitively expensive and high-risk for venture capitalists.
Another reason venture capital firms do not invest in clean energy is because most
projects occur on too long of a timeframe for the firm to tolerate. Venture capital
firms expect their investments to mature roughly on a 10-year time scale.7 The first
five years involve stages of progressive investment and helping the projects scale
3
Ghosh, Shikhar, and Ramana Nanda. "Venture Capital Investment in the Clean Energy Sector." SSRN
Electronic Journal SSRN Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1669445.
4 Ghosh, Shikhar, and Ramana Nanda. "Venture Capital Investment in the Clean Energy Sector." SSRN
Electronic Journal SSRN Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1669445.
5 "Historical Trend Data." PWCMoneyTree. Accessed June 27, 2016.
https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/HistoricTrends/CustomQueryHistoricTrend.
6 "Historical Trend Data." PWCMoneyTree. Accessed June 27, 2016.
https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/HistoricTrends/CustomQueryHistoricTrend.
7 Gaddy, Benjamin Erik and Sivaram, Varun and Jones, Timothy Bernard and Wayman Libby, Venture
Capital and Cleantech: The Wrong Model for Energy Innovation (June 2, 2016). Available at SSRN:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2788919
Venture Capital and Research Centers: Facilitating Innovation
and the following five years are when profits begin to return to the venture capital
firm. Most endeavors in clean energy take 10-15 years to fully mature.8 To further
complicate matters, there is always the possibility that, after millions of dollars in
investment and several years of research, a clean-energy project may prove to be
irremediably unprofitable. The expanded timeframe and increased risk of clean
energy investments exist because clean energy companies face two essential
challenges where companies in most other sectors face only one: first, making
technology to serve a specific purpose and second, to scale that technology
profitably.9 It is difficult to know how much time and how many resources are
necessary to develop and implement manufacturing techniques that enable
cleantech projects to scale profitably.
Clean energy firms are less likely to be acquired by established companies because,
based on current levels of profitability rather than long-term potential, methods of
clean energy production are almost never more cost-effective than current methods.
Compared to exit rates of 11.9% and 6.3% for software and medical companies
respectively, only 3.8% of clean energy companies were acquired from 20062011.10 Venture capital firms have no interest in funding projects that will not be
acquired because expecting an exit within five to ten years is key to venture capital
investment strategy. The connection that exists between venture capitalists who
fund the initial operations and established industry players who purchase the
startups once they reach maturity is very strong in software but practically
nonexistent in clean energy. The relationship between venture capital and industry
functions only when both venture capitalists and industry players derive profit from
their investments. With venture capital firms disinclined to invest, clean energy
companies struggle to demonstrate profit potential, get acquired by an industry
player and then brought to scale. Clean energy is not given the chance to scale
because it is generally the parent company that figures out how to scale the product
of the company it buys. The challenge of scaling clean energy has proven extremely
difficult; investors are too afraid of not receiving a timely return on capital to invest
in clean energy scaling efforts. Clean energy also misses out on the stock market
interest that accompanies being acquired by a larger company. 11 Market forces
simply do not encourage pursuit and development of scalable clean energy
solutions.
8
Gaddy, Benjamin Erik and Sivaram, Varun and Jones, Timothy Bernard and Wayman Libby, Venture
Capital and Cleantech: The Wrong Model for Energy Innovation (June 2, 2016). Available at SSRN:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2788919
9 Ghosh, Shikhar, and Ramana Nanda. "Venture Capital Investment in the Clean Energy Sector." SSRN
Electronic Journal SSRN Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1669445.
10 Gaddy, Benjamin Erik and Sivaram, Varun and Jones, Timothy Bernard and Wayman Libby,
Venture Capital and Cleantech: The Wrong Model for Energy Innovation (June 2, 2016). Available at
SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2788919
11 Ghosh, Shikhar, and Ramana Nanda. "Venture Capital Investment in the Clean Energy Sector."
SSRN Electronic Journal SSRN Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1669445.
Venture Capital and Research Centers: Facilitating Innovation
The lack of institutional support surrounding clean energy makes progress in the
field very slow and unreliable. There must be an institutional framework in place to
help clean energy startups move forward from the point at which a project is too
advanced to receive more government funding but not yet profitable. The clean
energy community refers to this gap between fundability and profitability as ‘the
valley of death’.12 If we are serious about implementing clean energy solutions and
avoiding the dire environmental and economic consequences of inaction on this
issue we will have to find a solution to the problem of funding and scaling clean
energy outside the venture capital model.
Section II
Since 2002, the aggregate of all seed and early-stage funding has risen steadily
across all industries. All investment statistics pertain to fiscal year 2015. Across all
industries. there were 1513 deals worth a total of $9.325B ($6.16M per company).
In biotechnology, there were 122 deals worth a total of $1.84B ($15.1M per
company). Investment in biotechnology has outpaced the aggregate of all industries.
In software/IT services, there were 717 deals worth a total of $4.183B ($5.83M per
company). Software/IT investment has risen faster than average. Industrial/Energy
investment has fluctuated very much and has declined since 2011. In
Industrial/Energy there were 76 deals worth $466.4M ($6.13M per company).
Medical device investment hit a peak in 2009 and has remained steady for the most
part since then, decreasing slightly. In medical devices, there were 74 deals worth
$347.3M ($4.69M per company). Investment in financial services has risen sharply
since 2014. There were 37 deals worth $308.1M ($8.33M per company).13 Here are
recent trends in seed and early stage venture capital investment by region in
software/IT and biotechnology: 451 out of 1173 software/IT deals were made in
Silicon Valley. 81 out of 331 biotechnology deals occurred in New England, while 83
out of 331 deals occurred in Silicon Valley.14
Section III
Case Western: Sears think[box]
Case Western University sponsors a program called Sears think[box] that provides a
public space for anyone to ‘tinker and creatively invent’. The White House named
think[box] a national leader in university makerspaces. It is located in a 7-story
50,000 square foot facility, soon to expand and undergo renovation. Being a $35M
project, Sears think[box] is one of the world’s largest university innovation centers.
12
Gaddy, Benjamin Erik and Sivaram, Varun and Jones, Timothy Bernard and Wayman Libby,
Venture Capital and Cleantech: The Wrong Model for Energy Innovation (June 2, 2016). Available at
SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2788919
13 "Historical Trend Data." PWCMoneyTree. Accessed June 27, 2016.
https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/HistoricTrends/CustomQueryHistoricTrend.
14 "Historical Trend Data." PWCMoneyTree. Accessed June 27, 2016.
https://www.pwcmoneytree.com/HistoricTrends/CustomQueryHistoricTrend.
Venture Capital and Research Centers: Facilitating Innovation
The State of Ohio granted $1M to think[box], citing it as an economic engine for the
region. Sears think[box] receives over 5000 visits each month, making it the third
most popular facility on campus, behind the athletics center and the library. During
the fall and spring semesters it is open 63 hours a week and during the summer it is
open 20 hours a week.
Sears think[box] is equipped with 3D printers, laser cutters, photo tables, sewing
machines, CNC routers, vinyl cutters, saw stands, laminators, 3D stereo inspection
microscopes, soldering irons, hand tools, all-in-one electronics instruments
(multimeter, power supply, oscilloscope, and function generator), 3D scanners,
vacuum chambers, drill presses, combination sanders, vertical and horizontal
bandsaws, panel saws and software design programs such as Adobe Photoshop and
CorelDraw. 15 The facility is a shared space with both group and individual
workstations. Upon arrival in the facility, a teaching assistant will greet think[box]
users and connect them with the right tools to work on their projects. Staff will not
assist users in designing or building; they can only provide basic tutorials. While the
center does not allow users to do mass manufacturing on the premises, think[box]
will connect users to people and resources to further build their business. All of the
services and training users receive from think[box] staff is free. Materials, however,
are not free; undergraduates receive a discount while all other users must pay a
standard price unless they bring their own materials.
The Sears think[box] prioritizes safety above all else. No food, drinks or open toe
shoes are allowed in the facility. To verify that a user is qualified to use equipment
think[box] makes use of an ability badge system. One gains access to restricted
machines upon receiving an ability badge from think[box] staff. It is expected that
people use pieces of equipment only after consulting the instructional website
and/or a teaching assistant. In order to gain access to the metal or wood shops one
must participate in a brief safety orientation. There are five levels of machine access,
ranging from level 1 with no restrictions to level 5 that requires training and the
completion of a liability form. The think[box] program also has a system in place for
the disposal of hazardous waste materials. Below is a diagram of the floor layout,
containing both individual and group working spaces:
15
“Equipment.” Case School of Engineering. Accessed July 08, 2016.
https://engineering.case.edu/thinkbox/equipment.
Venture Capital and Research Centers: Facilitating Innovation
A think[box] Student Project Fund exists to further support CWRU undergraduate
and graduate students in their experimental endeavors. The sponsors of the fund
are the George W. Codrington Charitable Foundation, Fran and Jules Belkin and
Brandon Palmer (CWR Class of 2000). Funding is more likely to go to teams with
diverse makeups in terms of ethnicity and course of study. Academic course related
projects are not eligible for funding; the fund primarily targets extra-curricular
activities and considers competition-based projects on a case-by-case basis. Many
think[box] users participate in engineering contests such as the Saint Gobain Design
Competition and the Ohio Clean Energy Challenge. Any single project can receive a
maximum of $2500 from the fund. In order to apply and qualify for funding, those
seeking funding must complete an online application, submit a two page interim
progress report by September 1, 2016 and a three page final report by December
31, 2016. Proposals will be judged according to technical and monetary feasibility as
well as utility and creativity. All intellectual property that results from a project’s
completion belongs to the students, not the university or any of the program’s other
sponsors.
To reiterate, think[box] doors are open to all people, though there are restrictions
based on age and special procedures required to register large groups for time in
the think[box] facility. While think[box] is not a place for startups in the marketing
and expansion phase, think[box] staff are prepared to connect startups in that stage
with resources outside the university to assist them in building their businesses. On
their website is a full list of informal company partners under the services section.16
Eligibility for funding from the Student Project Fund is restricted to current
undergraduate and graduate students attending Case Western. Award recipients
will receive 50% of funding before starting their project and the remaining 50%
once they submit their interim report. In the space itself, there are 4 open project
bays available on a first-come-first-serve basis and 3 bays reserved for long-term
projects that a team must fill out an application to reserve. Sears think[box] staffs its
“Services” Case School of Engineering. Accessed July 08, 2016.
https://engineering.case.edu/thinkbox/services.
16
Venture Capital and Research Centers: Facilitating Innovation
facility with undergraduate and graduate students from Case Western, Cleveland
Institute of Art and Cleveland Institute of Music. Student employees are responsible
for training users, monitoring safety, keeping the facility clean and organized, and
giving group tours. Wages begin at $10/hour.
Invent@NMU
Invent@NMU specializes in the creation and marketing of simple hardware
products. They describe themselves as a creative and highly energetic contract
design and commercialization house. Unlike most other makerspaces their clients
do not have access to any equipment. When the program started in October 2014
the student team consisted of just four members, but now there are three
professional mentors who guide a team of 13 part-time student employees. The
student employees are the ones who work with manufacturing equipment. There
are three main student positions: projects managers, mechanical engineers and
industrial product designers. Other staff roles include public relations, graphic
design, videography, photography and welding. Equipment available to student
employees includes laser engravers, vacuum formers, CNC table routers, drill
presses, a wood shop, a metal studio, a sound studio, a ceramics studio, a cinema,
letterpresses, screen presses, a photography studio, lathes, plasma cutters and
bandsaws. Clients pay the program $30 for each hour the students spend working
on prototyping and refining their products. There are no restrictions on clients; the
program serves everyone from students and university staff to independent
inventors with no NMU affiliation.
The students’ objective is to develop a product, not necessarily a business.
Invent@NMU welcomes ideas at any stage of development but they tend to favor
smaller projects for reasons related to cost and production capacity. Invent@NMU
will generally take on projects that require less than $100,000 in capital and less
than a year to go from ‘napkin to market’. Since October 16, 2014, the program has
processed 169 distinct ideas. NMU has funded the program experimentally with
$300k annually for three years. Continuation of the program depends on an
assessment of its achievements at the end of this three-year period; it is the
university’s hope that after three years the program will be able to fund itself using
revenue generated from fees charged to clients. After clients have exhausted the
resources Invent@NMU has to offer program managers are prepared to connect
them with other business development programs to handle such matters as
sourcing debt, crafting a business plan and handling long-term operations. Although
it is the students who work on projects for clients, the clients retain all rights and
intellectual property associated with the final product.
Invent@NMU makes use of a five-step program for transforming ideas into
marketable goods: Validation, Ideation, Commercialization, Production, and
Operations. All projects start in Validation regardless of how far along the client is in
product development. Validation allows the team to get on the same page with
respect to the product and identify any potential competitors. Invent@NMU will
provide the client with feedback from a panel of experts in art and design,
Venture Capital and Research Centers: Facilitating Innovation
mechanical engineering, business and economic development. Validation requires
payment a one-time $150 fee. In Ideation the team designs and refines the product
using sketches, models and prototypes. During Commercialization the team
conducts research into return on investment and searches for potential
manufacturing partners. In Production the team requests quotes from
manufacturers and selects one with which to move forward. In Operations the team
helps the client with press releases and internet marketing and also connects the
client with local businesses to carry their product. The clients reserve the right to
move at their own pace and participate in the five-step process in whatever way
they so choose.
The type of help clients receive from the program varies greatly according to their
needs and current level of progress. On the Invent@NMU website, program
managers publicize 10 companies that are now operating successfully as a
consequence of their collaboration with Invent@NMU. Such companies include
Marquette Mounts, a seller of storage devices for vehicles; Life Boost LLC, a vitamin
delivery service; Paint Scrubber, seller of a wooden device to clean paintbrushes;
EasyIce, a seller of ice machines and Jug Smuggler, maker of a device to attach to
motorcycles that holds a jug of water.
Otherlab
Otherlab’s main objective is to explore early stage ideas that will eventually leave
the Otherlab nest and become startups. Unlike think[box] and Invent@NMU,
Otherlab is not an incubator for startups looking to expand; Otherlab is a small
independent research lab that attracts great talent to work on ideas in their earliest
stages before they become startups. Otherlab is a private entity comprised of
inventors, engineers and scientists striving to impact the energy, robotics,
manufacturing and education sectors. Otherlab owns the intellectual property for
technologies it develops and will maintain equity stakes for itself in startups that
exist as a consequence of Otherlab research. Currently, there are 15 early stage
companies looking to leave the Otherlab nest. Otherlab founder and director Saul
Griffith provides most of the ideas the Otherlab team investigates but it is also
common for the team to derive ideas for new projects while working on Saul’s ideas.
Otherlab has a strong track record of attracting research funding (via DARPA and
ARPA-E) for early, high-risk ideas in areas such as programmable matter, robotics,
solar energy, wind energy, energy storage, computational and advanced
manufacturing and medical devices. Attracting investment enables Otherlab to derisk the exploratory stages of product development. The people at Otherlab
emphasize prototyping and rigorous physics and math simulations to enable cutting
edge innovation in which the final product has been optimized for various
conditions. Their design tools are often customized in-house because much of the
work they do is on the frontier of new technologies for which there is no standard
manufacturing equipment. They operate in a 2500 sq. ft. prototyping shop in the
Schoenstein Organ Factory building in San Francisco with such equipment as a
waterjet cutter, a high power laser cutter, 5-axis mill and more. Otherlab
Venture Capital and Research Centers: Facilitating Innovation
collaborates with commercial entities, universities and research firms such as
Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, Harvard, NASA, Autodesk, GE, Ford, Google, Motorola, IDEO
and others.17 The following paragraphs will detail some of the projects the people at
Otherlab have been working on:
Other Machine Co. specializes in the design and creation of 3D-printing devices to
assist independent inventors in prototyping their ideas. Their goal is for everyone to
have the confidence and means to turn their ideas into high quality finished
products. The company sells two versions of its Othermill manufacturing device:
Othermill for $2199, and Othermill Pro for $3199. The Othermill Pro is slightly more
precise than the Othermill and it has a longer warranty. They also made a software
program for controlling the Othermill device (called Otherplan) available for free on
their website. With Othermill users can manufacture 3D designs from the Otherplan
program as well as designs from other common design programs such as EAGLE,
Gerbers and G-code. The Othermill is particularly useful for manufacturing printed
circuit boards (PCBs) and small machine parts.18
Sunfolding has developed a new approach to tracking for photovoltaic systems.
They use a mass-manufactured modular drive to take advantage of high-volume
manufacturing techniques that have not yet been applied to solar, modern control
methods with minimized hardware and optimal design based on overall project
economics. Their system eliminates gearboxes, motors, wires and bearings, each
among the most expensive and unreliable components of current photovoltaic
systems. Instead, the solar tracking technology uses advanced materials which are
more durable, versatile and cost-efficient than metal. Polymer plastic tubes stacked
on top of each other inflate and deflate with air to tilt the solar panels in such a way
as to align with the sun’s position. Use of polymers makes Sunfolding’s solar
tracking mechanism impervious to high humidity, a challenge for motor and gear
based tracking mechanisms. Their trackers have a 30-year lifespan; the simplicity of
their design reduces maintenance costs and increases durability.19
Volute makes a carbon fiber high-pressure gas chamber that folds to fit anywhere.
Bulky cylinders often used to store compressed gas are poor for applications in
which space is a constraining factor such as in cars and trucks. Using cylindrical
tanks, vehicle designers inevitably have to compromise on driving range, cargo
capacity and passenger space to accommodate ill-fitting gas chambers. Volute’s
tanks weave thin pipes together, much like one’s intestines, in order to fit as much
gas as possible in irregularly shaped areas. Volute’s innovation has enabled
hydrogen and natural gas vehicles to outperform gasoline vehicles while emitting
fewer greenhouse gasses for the first time. Volute’s tank is made of a polymer liner
“Otherlab!” Otherlab! Accessed August 3, 2016.
https://otherlab.com/.
18 “Home – Other Machine Co.” Other Machine Co. Accessed August 3, 2016.
https://othermachine.co/.
19 “Sunfolding.” RSS. Accessed August 3, 2016.
http://sunfolding.com/
17
Venture Capital and Research Centers: Facilitating Innovation
that prevents the natural gas from escaping and a high-strength fiber outer layer
that allows the tank to safely hold high-pressure gas. The tank has a 20-year
lifespan.20
Otherlab is developing thermally adaptive materials and hands-on education
programs. Otherlab’s thermally adaptive materials change thickness and insulation
in response to the local thermal environment. Such materials have the potential to
broaden the range of comfortable temperatures for building occupants and
decreasing energy costs related to heat and air conditioning. Otherlab is also
working with howtoons.com to teach science and engineering through projectbased learning and with Onya Cycles to design bicycles and tricycles with greater
carrying capacities without sacrificing fun and performance.21
Conclusion
Venture capital firms do not operate under the guise of any altruistic motivations;
they operate according to their fiduciary duty to provide profits for investors. As
pressure to provide returns to investors has increased, venture capital firms are
investing more in already-proven technologies and less in clean energy.22 There is
currently no set of institutions in place to help clean energy companies find
necessary resources and talent to scale. Government involvement, at least in the
beginning, is an absolute necessity if we are to build momentum for the clean energy
movement. Whereas market forces have led to the proliferation of software
technologies and the formation of an institutional framework conducive to software
development, clean energy is not yet at a stage where it can be profitable at scale.
Clean energy companies should wait longer to raise private capital, meaning that
there should be government funding in place to support clean energy scaling
research. The Department of Energy should increase funding for the Small Business
Innovation Research and Small Business Innovation programs. Research programs
and incubators at universities and in the private sector could play a major role in
facilitating innovation in clean energy and assisting startups in entering the market.
The three case studies examined in this paper should serve as models for MIT’s
Innovation Orchards initiative. The research center/startup incubator approach is
superior to funding startups with venture capital for two reasons. First, the cost of
opening lab space to the public is much less than seeking venture capital and using
it to rent lab space and/or buy equipment. Providing space and equipment to those
with ideas substantially decreases the effort and resources they must expend to turn
their ideas into reality. With freely available equipment, there is no longer a cost to
“Volute.” Volute RSS. Accessed August 3, 2016.
http://voluteinc.com/.
21 Otherlab!” Otherlab! Accessed August 3, 2016.
https://otherlab.com/.
22 Auerswald, Philip E., and Lewis M. Branscomb. "Between Invention and Innovation: An Analysis of
Funding for Early Stage Technology Development."
20
Venture Capital and Research Centers: Facilitating Innovation
experimentation. In the absence of costs, more people will be encouraged to
experiment. Second, a community will emerge among those who make use of the
Innovation Orchards. People will share their ideas with one another in a common
space. Collaboration is key to successful innovation and the Innovation Orchards
program and others like it bring people together. Hopefully, a regional hub will
emerge out of Innovation Orchards, which will then attract investment and interest
from the community at large. Regional Innovation Investment Banks (RIIBs) could
be utilized to build portfolios balanced with equity stakes in clean energy firms and
other startups located in the same region. The RIIBs would be managed
independently but they would seek funding from the state.
Since clean energy is a long-term investment, there need to be investors willing to
part with large amounts of capital on which they do not expect a quick return.
Potential investors could include pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, family
investors, and philanthropies. Bill Gates, along with other major individual
investors, founded the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, which aims to double R&D in
clean energy by 2020. The stage at which companies need more support is during
path-to-scale (defined as annual revenues between $100M and $500M).23 In order
to scale there need to be industry liaisons to connect the originators of an idea with
the right manufacturers and innovators with knowledge and experience in scaling
companies. Taken together, these efforts should facilitate the formation and funding
of successful startups in clean energy and other sectors for which the current
venture capital model is ineffectual.
23
Reynolds, Elisabeth. "Growing Innovative Companies to Scale."
https://reap.mit.edu/assets/pdf/Scale_Up_Report_Dec2015.pdf.
Venture Capital and Research Centers: Facilitating Innovation
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Gaddy, Benjamin Erik and Sivaram, Varun and Jones, Timothy Bernard and Wayman
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2, 2016). Available at SSRN:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2788919
Ghosh, Shikhar, and Ramana Nanda. "Venture Capital Investment in the Clean
Energy Sector." SSRN Electronic Journal SSRN Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.1669445.
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“Home – Other Machine Co.” Other Machine Co. Accessed August 3, 2016.
https://othermachine.co/.
Locke, Richard M., and Rachel L. Wellhausen. Production in the Innovation Economy.
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“Otherlab!” Otherlab! Accessed August 3, 2016.
https://otherlab.com/.
Reynolds, Elisabeth. "Growing Innovative Companies to Scale."
https://reap.mit.edu/assets/pdf/Scale_Up_Report_Dec2015.pdf.
“Services” Case School of Engineering. Accessed July 08, 2016.
https://engineering.case.edu/thinkbox/services.
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