Funding a Green Business

I gave a talk on funding green businesses at the Green Business Expo last week. This week there is an article on greenbiz.com the topic from a VC perspective. Some of it mirrors what I talked about:

AC: You outline 5 types of investment capital in a business: self-funding, friends and family, angel investors, venture capitalists, and traditional lenders. Which strategy is most appropriate for seed stage, early stage and late stage companies?

BK: Seed stage is really just an idea and a business plan. Early stage is when you have a product or service ready to handle sales and customers. Late stage is when you are up and running, you've got customers, and are further along in generating revenue. Most venture capitalists are early and late stage investors because seed stage deals carry greater risk to the investor. For these seed and early stage companies, self-funding, friends and family, and angel investors are the best bets.

But it does get more into the VC perspective than I discussed.

One key lesson - get out there, start the business and focus on generating revenue. You're not going to get much investment without proven sales.

Investment in Green Tech

I've been reading a few articles lately about the increasing volumes of venture capital money flowing into green tech ventures. John Doerr has been the central character in just about everyone one of them. This morning I read about a speech he gave this weekend at MIT. One quote I found interesting is "There's too much money chasing too few good ventures, despite the size of this problem." In that speech and other articles, like this one in Fast Company, Doerr describes the green tech sector as bigger than the Internet. The problem is that while the problems being addressed by green tech are considerably large and have enormous market potential, they will take considerably longer to materialize compared to Internet companies. Hopefully investors will have the stomachs to hold on long enough to see the returns and we won't experience a collapse similar to the dot-com bubble.

Green Business Connections

Looking for investment or an investment opportunity? Looking for some other green business connection? I just ran across this page this morning. Build Business Relationships, Find Vendors, Distributors, Partners, Sell Excess Inventory!

Here are a couple examples:

African Wood Inc

We are looking for development partners for our business promoting and facilitating travel, trade and sustainable investment in Africa.

Futura Solar, LLC

Futura Solar seeks licensing partners, manufacturers, installers, green developers.

South Tropical

Ecuador organic shrimp farm seeks development partners and distributors.

MINK
Upscale vegan women's shoe line hand-made in Italy seeks strategic partner knowledgeable about the shoe industry.

One thing I notice is lots of bio-diesel businesses. The other notable is that these businesses are all over the world.