Chip Korn of Sonnenschein’s Venture Technology Group Discusses Venture Investments in the Cleantech Sector with LegalMinds.TV

In this exclusive LegalMinds.TV interview, Chip Korn, a Partner in Sonnenschein’s Venture Technology Group, takes a look at what factors affected the venture market this past year, as well what’s in store for the cleantech sector in 2010.

Investments in cleantech have helped lead a strong turnaround in the venture capital market after the first quarter of 2009 – pulling ahead of biotech and software as the largest area of investment.

According to Korn, cleantech will “continue to be a very attractive and growing sector for investment dollars, in large part spurred on by government regulation.” Though he warns that many renewable energy companies are very capital intensive and in addition to technology investments, are going to need a whole new level of financing to get to the project state. Korn points to what many refer to as the cleantech “valley of death,” where he says “once you get beyond typical technology investments for these very capital intensive companies, you’re going to need a lot of dollars to deploy a project and commercialize the technology.”

“Like everything else, 2009 was a tough year, certainly a down year. Funds spent a lot of time on their existing portfolio companies and not looking at new deals.” But according to Korn, “in 2010, the cleantech sector, in particular renewable energy, will continue to be a very attractive and growing sector for investment dollars"

In this interview, Korn explores the role of tax credits on large projects, the impact of government stimulus funds, the move of traditional VC funds into clean tech investments, and the funding outlook for early-stage companies across the broad range of industries that make up the cleantech sector.

"We’re going to see a lot of technology innovation at the early stage – in large part spurred on by government regulation as we move the country away from a dependence on old line energy sources.”

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