The Road to $30M and Beyond: A Cleantech Story
June 16, 2009 | 6:00-8:30pm
Agenda
3:00-3:30: Registration & Networking
3:30-5:30: Panel Discussion
5:30-6:00: Q&A
6:00-7:00: Networking Reception
Financing a Clean Tech Start-up: GreenVolts, a leader in concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) technology has raised $45 MM in financing including $30 million in Series B funding from Oak Investment Partners in September 2008. GreenVolts is using these funds to develop its CPV technology and a portion of the funds for its GV1 project, a 2 MW proof of concept power plant, built as part of its 20 year PPA agreement with Pacific Gas & Electric. In addition, GreenVolts secured further funding through the Department of Energy and the California Energy Commission.
Meet the key players including GreenVolts' Founder & Executive Chairman, the CEC who identified GreenVolts as a prime candidate for commercialization and the representative from the CPUC who approved the deal with PG&E. Learn about the company's evolution, how the investment climate has changed since the downturn of the economy and how companies like GreenVolts are turning towards partnerships and alternative sources of funding for future technology development. In addition learn and how the CEC and CPUC are evaluating new concepts and power projects across California.
Speakers
Bob Cart , Founder and Executive Chairman, GreenVolts
Paul Douglas, Supervisor, Renewable Procurement and Resource Planning, California Public Utilities Commission
Mike Gravely, Manager, Energy Systems Research Office, Energy Research & Development Division, California Energy Commission
Hal O. LaFlash, Director, Emerging Clean Technology Policy, Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E)
Lead Facilitator: Melinda Richter, Executive Director, Environmental Business Cluster
Venue
San Jose Tech Museum
201 South Market Street
San Jose, CA 95113
Bob Cart , Founder and Executive Chairman, GreenVolts
Before founding GreenVolts, Bob spent over 20 years in leadership positions starting with Industrial Cutting Die (ICD), a precision machine tool manufacturer. As its CEO, and later board member, Bob was responsible for all facets of the business which led to its later sale to Enefco International. He later became Senior VP of Product & Brand Management for 1st Financial Bank USA and President of its 1FB.net subsidiary. Bob was VP of Engineering for Cybergold, where he helped lead that company to its $174 million IPO. Bob was inspired to invent the company’s patent-pending CarouSol concentrating PV technology while on an 18 month Pacific ocean voyage. The technical challenges of living off the grid in a brutal ocean environment helped drive the efficiency and reliability of the GreenVolts technology design. Bob’s vision, leadership, and technical expertise are helping GreenVolts reach its mission to deliver the world’s lowest cost solar energy solution on a massive scale.
Paul Douglas, Supervisor, Renewable Procurement and Resource Planning, California Public Utilities Commission
Paul Douglas, Manager of Renewable Procurement and Resource Planning, California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Paul is responsible for the design and implementation of the CPUC’s Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) program, the largest program of its kind in the nation. Since the program’s inception, Paul has taken the lead on a wide range of RPS implementation challenges, ranging from avoided cost calculations and bid evaluation methodology to renewable energy credit (RECs) trading and procurement guidelines. To date, the program has resulted in approximately 7,000 MW of renewable generation under contract.
He also created the underlying concept and played a key role in the formation of the Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI), a statewide multi-agency initiative to help identify the transmission projects needed to accommodate California’s renewable energy goals. Paul Douglas joined the CPUC in 2001. Prior to the CPUC, Paul worked in the high-tech industry. He has a BA in business and finance from the San Francisco State University.
Mike Gravely, Manager, Energy Systems Research Office, Energy Research & Development Division, California Energy Commission
Mike Gravely is the Manager of the Energy Systems Research Office at the California Energy Commission. His office manages over $250 million in active energy related research and development projects. The office supports research for California in a variety of technical areas that include: Smart Grid, Renewable Grid Integration, Transmission, Distribution, Demand Response, Energy Storage, Distributed Energy Resources, Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS), and Sustainable Communities. His office also manages the Energy Commission’s Energy Innovations Small Grant (EISG) Program that awards an average of 25-35 small grants annually (for up to $95K each). As part of the EISG Program, he works with highly successful EISG awardees to help them obtain follow-on funding from the CEC, DOE, private industry and venture capitalists. Mike has over 30 years of engineering and integration experience in the energy, aerospace and communications fields. Mike Gravely has a BSEE from the Virginia Military Institute and an MSEE from California State University at Sacramento.
Hal O. LaFlash, Director, Emerging Clean Technology Policy, Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E)
Hal LaFlash is the director of emerging clean technology policy in the energy procurement organization at Pacific Gas and Electric Company. His duties include assessing the state of technologies that will affect how PG&E fills its future resource needs, which includes understanding, evaluating, and supporting emerging renewable energy and other clean energy technologies. Hal has been at PG&E for 28 years where he has held various positions in energy efficiency, non-utility generation, gas transportation, resource planning, and renewable energy policy. He also held positions at PG&E Corporation in corporate development and business planning. Hal has been a judge in the Clean Tech Open business plan competition; he was a member of the Solar Task Force of the Western Governors Association’s Clean and Diversified Energy Initiative; he co-authored “Hedging Carbon Risk: Protecting Customers and Shareholders from the Financial Risk Associated with Carbon Dioxide Emissions,†which was published by the Electricity Journal; and he is currently a cochair of the Utility Committee of the American Council on Renewable Energy and a member of the Executive Board of the California Biomass Collaborative. Hal has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration.
Lead Facilitator: Melinda Richter, Executive Director, Environmental Business Cluster
Melinda Richter is the founder and CEO of Prescience International, a firm dedicated to the commercialization of science and technology through starting and managing research centers, incubators, foundations and institutes. Prescience International is dedicated to fostering innovation through entrepreneurship so that the best of science and technology can reach the people who need it. Ms. Richter is a serial entrepreneur with strong connections into the venture and angel community as well as an extensive executive rolodex. With over 15 years of global experience managing and operating incubators and research centers, Ms. Richter specializes in the practices that expedite the path to commercialization.
Ms. Richter started her career within a small elite leadership group of 8-10 people who were selected and developed to be one of the leaders of the Nortel Networks. Ms. Richter worked for eight years in Nortel Networks throughout North America, the U.K., Europe, Central and Latin America, and Asia. Ms. Richter worked in acquisitions, strategic planning, marketing, contract negotiations, engineering and manufacturing optimization, world trade market development, and general management of an IT business unit. One of Ms. Richter’s key accomplishments was the successful implementation of a new technology across Nortel Networks’ seven international regions including Nortel Africa, Nortel Asia South Pacific, Nortel CALA (Caribbean and Latin America), Nortel China, Nortel Europe, Nortel Japan, and Nortel U.K. Ms. Richter won several Nortel awards including the highest level CEO Award for People / Emerging Market Development in China. In China, Ms. Richter was responsible for creating joint ventures with locally owned telecommunications companies and, post agreement, she was responsible for developing the management for each joint enterprise. She also was responsible for general management development for Nortel Asia Pacific, which encompassed the regions of Nortel China, Nortel Japan, and Nortel Asia South Pacific. In her final position, she was responsible for integrating and managing a software business unit which was an acquisition of a 1500 person firm.
Ms. Richter left Nortel to start eTreasurer, a European online financial and accounting hub for CFOs, where she raised $11M and executed operations in London, Paris and Barcelona. Following, Ms. Richter led business development for high technology companies in Silicon Valley before entering the field of incubation for science and technology by co-leading the life science and technology incubator, ASTIA (formerly known as the Women’s Technology Cluster).
Currently as CEO of Prescience International, Ms. Richter’s firm oversees the direction of other centers of commercialization including the San Jose BioCenter, a science and technology incubator that provides specialized facilities, capital equipment, laboratory support and business development services to life science and cleantech companies. Prescience also created and manages the University of California at Berkeley’s BioExec Program and the California Center for Healthcare and BioMedical Technology Research Foundation, InnovateMD. Prescience International also consults to other commercialization centers such as the US Market Access Center and international agencies such as JETRO, the Canadian Consulate General, and the Finnish agency Global Connexus, and provides business development services to their respective companies in the fields of science and technology.
Ms. Richter currently sits on the governing board of the National Business Incubation Association and the boards of University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business BioExecutive Institute and San Jose State University’s Masters of Biotechnology Program. Ms. Richter holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada and an M.B.A. from INSEAD in France.
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