VCs whack investments in cleantech

The average amount of venture capital raised by the top 25 Bay Area cleantech companies plummeted 85 percent to $8.6 million in 2009 from about $58 million in 2008.

Taken together, the pullback slashed overall investment in the top 25 deals to $215 million in 2009 from $1.4 billion the previous year, according to San Francisco Business Times research (see the List, Page 28).

In addition to the credit crunch, which made raising certain types of funding nearly impossible, cleantech firms suffered from an unintended consequence of the federal stimulus package in 2009, said Maurice Gunderson, a senior partner at San Francisco venture firm CMEA Capital.

“From January to about the middle of the year, everybody was waiting to see who was going to get government money, so a lot of venture capitalists just sat on the sidelines waiting to see who would win free money,” Gunderson said.

Government money took the place of both venture money and project finance for those firms that could get it in 2009.

Tesla Motors topped the Bay Area cleantech List in 2009 by raising just less than $53 million from VCs, a far cry from the top 2008 firm Nanosolar, which raised $300 million that year. Not factored in, however was the $465 million government loan Tesla was awarded by the federal government in 2009.

Pretty much any company that raised any money at all made the List of Top VC-funded cleantech firms in 2009. EMeter barely made 2008’s List at the No. 25 spot by raising $12.5 million. In 2009, iWatt held the 25th spot, raising only $622,000.

Read the full story in the San Francisco Business Times.