VC prizes, and rocket scientists turn green
The X Prize Foundation, a group advancing safe travel in space, is soliciting venture capitalists to offer million-dollar prizes to generate ideas from entrepreneurs. It’s having a fund-raiser at Google.
The New York Times has the story, which provides a summary some of the other VC-related competitions out there. Such competitions have a long history in Silicon Valley. There are many more such competitions, not mentioned (VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson has regular business plan competitions, for example; Charles River Ventures recently held its Entrepreneur Idol competition, and plans one at Berkeley)
Two years ago, the X Prize Foundation awarded a $10 million prize to Mojave Aerospace Ventures for the flight of SpaceShipOne — launched by aerospace designer Burt Rutan and financier Paul Allen.
Seperate, but related: Six California rocket scientists have founded a green technology company to build a zero-emissions power plant, and looking for $100 million in capital, according to VentureWire (sub required).
The former scientists from Aerojet have designed a plant that combusts fuel with oxygen to create electric power. They want to isolate the resulting carbon dioxide waste stream, and pump it underground into saline structures. Called Clean Energy Systems, the company has $13 million in a first round of funding to pursuse the idea.
Backers of the Rancho Cordova, Calif. company are Southern California Gas Co., and Canadian investors Paxton Corp. and Quadrise Canada Corp., both based in Calgary, Canada, VentureWire said.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
