Clean Tech: Al Gore Joins Kleiner Perkins as Partner

VentureBeat reports that Al Gore has joined Kleiner Perkins, the well-known venture capital firm that backed Google, Netscape, Sun, Amazon and many others.

Former Vice President and Nobel laureate Al Gore will join Kleiner Perkins as a partner, in what VentureBeat says is a "continued effort to ramp up its investments in the area of green technology. It’s the firm’s latest big name addition. It hired former Secretary of State Colin Powell two years go, and has an arrangement with former eBay executive and California politician Steve Westly, who works out of the firm’s back office."

"There’s an exclusive story in Fortune about Gore’s move, which contains a detailed description of the collaboration between Gore and Kleiner’s leading partner John Doerr. It’s a great piece, written in the classic, engaging style of author Adam Lashinsky." Here’s the opening, as quoted by VentureBeat:

After “a conversation that’s gone on for a year and a half,” according to Gore, he has decided to join his old pal [Kleiner Partner] John Doerr as an active, hands-on partner at Kleiner Perkins, Silicon Valley’s preeminent venture firm.

The move is more than another Colin Powell moment (the former Secretary of State signed on as a Kleiner “strategic limited partner” two years ago and has hardly been heard from since). Gore is joining the firm as Kleiner makes a risky move beyond information technology and health-care investing into the fast-growing and increasingly competitive arena of “clean technology.”

According to Doerr, by 2009 more than a third of Kleiner’s latest fund, which was raised in 2006 and totals $600 million, will be invested in technologies that aim to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. Already Kleiner has invested more than $270 million from various funds in 26 companies that make everything from microbes that scrub old oil wells to electric cars to noncorn ethanol. Twelve of Kleiner’s 22 partners now spend some or all of their time on green investments.

"Doerr, in turn will join the advisory board of Generation Investment Management, the $1 billion investment company Gore started three years ago in London with David Blood — to invest in publicly traded “sustainable” companies, and Lashinsky’s piece has more."

Read the full article: VentureBeat

Global Climate Change: Virgin Money to Launch Climate Change Fund

From Citigroup (NYSE:C)to Wells Fargo, (NYSE:WFC) the financial services industry is taking a hard look at climate change as an investment opportunity. The latest entry is Virgin Money (VM), Richard Branson's play to help people with a range of investment, insurance and loan products, including securing loans from friends, family and others.

In January, VM will launch the Virgin Climate Change Leaders Fund, a product to support green companies or companies that are working toward environmental challenges.

"Customers will be able to invest in companies at the forefront of reducing their environmental footprint...without having to compromise on performance," said CEO Jayne-Anne Gadhia in a statement.

GLG Partners LP, the largest independent alternative asset manager in Europe, will advise the fund.

"The Virgin Climate Change Leaders Fund provides investors the unique ability to combine a commitment to environmentally sound investing with the competitive advantages of the GLG Partners investment process," said Ben Funnell, a GLG co-founder.

Virgin Money is a subsidiary of Virgin Group.

For more on Virgin Money, read this article from the Times of London.

Microfinance: Silicon Valley Microfinance Network Hosts Calvert Foundation & eBay's MicroPlace

I wish I lived in Silicon Valley, if only to attend the meetings of the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network (SVMN). Better still, perhaps someone should start a Greater Philadelphia Microfinance Network. Any takers?

Meanwhile, I can live vicariously. SVMN is sharing slides from their meetings on their web site. Here is a link to slides from the November 5th SVMN meeting, featuring Shari Berenbach from the Calvert Foundation, and Karl Wiley from eBay’s MicroPlace: SVNM Meetings

Clean Tech: Cramer's Mad Money Green Week

I'm a Cramer fan and was pleased to see he's hosting a Green Week series on his favorite Green stocks, including one of my favorites, First Solar (FSLR) and a surprising feature, Wells Fargo (WFC).

Check it out if you haven't already on CNBC (cnbc.com). (I'll update this post with a real link and tags when I get to my computer.)

And one of these days I'll post a model Green Skeptic portfolio.

P.S. Here's the link: Mad Green

Microfinance: CNN Interview with Mohammad Yunus

CNN's Talk Asia features an interview with Muhammad Yunus, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his pioneering work in microcredit. Readers of The Green Skeptic will be familiar with Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded, which brought financial services to the poor, and which as of September, 2007, has 7.31 million borrowers, 97 percent of whom are women.

His main points:

"Women have a long-term vision, she wants to move up to something."

"It's not Grameen Bank came and told them to do that; it is in their hearts."

"We developed a system which doesn't need collateral, guarantee, legal."

"We citizens, we individuals, are capable people addressing social issues."

Read the full interview here: Talk Asia

Clean Tech: A VC Going Carbon Neutral

Neal Dikeman, founding partner at Jane Capital Partners LLC, a boutique merchant bank advising strategic investors and startups in cleantech, and founding contributor of the Cleantech Blog, writes about Bessemer Ventures' new carbon friendly initiative.

"Their logic is simple, if they are investing in cleantech because they believe in being part of the global warming solution, not only making money, then they should practice what they preach. While still early days, they are targeting both their power and travel usage, and expect they will likely implement an internal reduction plan as well as purchasing offsets...Bessemer is also going to be buying offsets for their smaller portfolio companies (those under 50 people)."

"'The goal is that when these companies grow into bigger companies and leave the nest, they will continue the tradition. We want them (our portfolio companies) to lead the next generation environmentally responsible enterprises,' said Bessemer's Ted Lin, who also told Neal that they are looking for a good offset provider, because as with any venture capitalist, they are looking for the 'best of breed'."

If you can help Bessemer, Neal suggests emailing Ted at Ted@bvp.com.

Let's hope this is a trend, not just among cleantech VCs, but others.