GreenBeat speaker: Vinod Khosla, the Super Grid skeptic
I’m delighted to announce that Vinod Khosla, one of Silicon Valley’s highest profile green investors, will be speaking at our GreenBeat conference next week.
Khosla is important for two reasons. He’s probably the most prolific investor in the sector around, having backed a company in almost every area of clean technology, from ethanol to solar — and was one of the first to make such a bold string of bets. For a while, it became his… Continue Reading
Cleantech due for a comeback? Khosla Ventures raises $1.1B, hires former Facebook CFO
Update: Khosla Ventures just sent us a press release confirming the news.
Looks like not everyone’s afraid of the ongoing shakeup of the venture capital industry. Khosla Ventures, the firm headed by Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla, has raised two funds totaling $1.1 billion to invest mostly into companies seeking to clean up the environment.
We already wrote that Khosla was raising the funds, but the New York Times has confirmed that he’s pulled together the money.
There’s… Continue Reading
Meet the new Midas List, same as the old list
Forbes has released the latest edition of its Midas List ranking of the top investors, and it’s full of familiar faces. The top four spots are literally identical to last year’s list, with Google backers John Doerr (of Kleiner Perkins), Michael Moritz (of Sequoia Capital), Ram Shiram (of Sherpalo), and Stanford Prof. David Cheriton holding on to their titles as the titans of venture capital. The lack of movement isn’t too surprising, since VCs didn’t… Continue Reading
Roundup: Green chemicals get started, gaming is ubiquitous, MySpace Music slowed again, and more
Genomatica creates renewable chemical from sugar water — While most chemicals are petroleum-based, several startups are trying to create new alternatives. One of the first to succeed is Genomatica, which says it has a cheap process to make 1,4-butanediol, a component chemical of many common materials, from sugar and water, potentially disrupting a $4 billion industry. More on Genomatica’s process here.
Gaming becoming ubiquitous — A national survey showed that almost all teens play games.
MySpace Music may get… Continue Reading
Appointment-scheduling startup ZocDoc gets $3M from Khosla
ZocDoc, the startup that helps users schedule doctors’ appointments online, has raised $3 million from Khosla Ventures.
The New York startup launched last September at the TechCrunch40 conference, and chief executive Cyrus Massoumi says growth has been climbing at an average rate of around 50 percent per month since then, both in terms of users and doctors. There are now 90,000 appointments available on the site, and 35,000 patients have used ZocDoc in the last 30… Continue Reading
Roundup: Facebook suspends Super Wall, Khosla joins Obama and more
Here’s the latest action:
Facebook suspends RockYou’s Super Wall – The social networking site has turned off the Facebook application’s viral aspects, like invitations and notifications, presumably as part of its efforts to crack down on spammy app activity. RockYou chief executive Lance Tokuda says he’s working with Facebook to get the suspended features restored soon. The move follows the shutdown of RockYou competitor Slide’s Top Friends application at the end of June due to a… Continue Reading
Biofuel battle: WSJ hits Khosla, Khosla hits back
Here’s the danger in becoming a well-known venture capitalist: You may well become the locus for heated debates over cleantech and environmentalism, even when you’re not expecting it. That’s what happened to Vinod Khosla yesterday, when the Wall Street Journal lashed out with a short hit piece on his policies titled “Khosla’s Conspiracy”.
The motivator was a lengthy interview in last week’s San Francisco Chronicle, in which Khosla, asked whether biofuels are driving up food prices,… Continue Reading
Top 10 tech trends: Smart phones, alternative energies, Boomer technologies
Where is technology headed?
The Churchill Club of Silicon Valley just wrapped up one of its most anticipated events: the Annual Top Ten Tech Trends Debate. Five well-known and opinionated venture capitalists weighed in on what trends will take flight and what trends will fizzle out in the months ahead.
(The VCs are pictured, from left to right: Steve Jurvetson, Vinod Khosla, Josh Kopelman, Roger McNamee, Joe Schoendorf.)
The audience of around 300 people was asked whether it… Continue Reading
Roundup: “Bubble video” taken down, but singer gets $3M, Bahu, RivalMap, more
Here’s the latest action:
1. Bubble Video singer gets $3M
2. Bahu, a social network for European high schoolers
3. Vinod Khosla upset with California regulations
4. Technorati revises its front page yet again
5. Smilebox, a software download for sharing photos, videos and other media, raises $7 million
6. Microsoft announces display advertising on MSN Mobile
7. Competitious relaunches as RivalMap, gives you dashboard to track your competitors
8. Worst case scenario: The next Great Depression
9. Verizon to take over all your… Continue Reading
Vinod Khosla: Hybrid-electric cars won’t make a difference
Vinod Khosla, a well-known venture capitalist and one of the most prolific investors in green technologies, has declared personal war on oil and coal.
He also thinks the environment can be helped by stressing efficiency and finding breakthroughs in new materials.
But hybrid electric cars won’t succeed, he said in an interview. You have to pay $5,000 more on a Prius in order to save half a ton of carbon a year, which is more than most… Continue Reading
Ausra aims to build biggest solar thermal plant, raises $40M
Ausra, an ambitious Silicon Valley company wanting to build a solar thermal electric power plant double the largest ever built, has raised somewhere north of $40 million in a first round of capital.
However, just as Ausra was preparing to make its announcement Monday that it has applied for a permit to produce a record 175 megawatt plant, its Oakland Calif. competitor, BrightSource, stole some of the thunder late last week by saying it has applied… Continue Reading
Vinod Khosla’s campaign on biofuels
Last week, we pointed to the teary-eyed speech by the well-known venture capitalist John Doerr, arguing for ways to stop global warming.
Now here’s his famous former parter, Vinod Khosla, who left Kleiner Perkins two years ago to invest aggressively in alternative energy, speaking on biofuels.
This is worth watching. He is introduced by Larry Page, co-founder of Google, which Kleiner Perkins backed when it was a tiny company. Page explains that was a skeptic about biofuel… Continue Reading
Khosla backs LanzaTech, carbon monoxide-to-ethanol company, with $3.5M
LanzaTech NZ Ltd., an Auckland, New Zealand company that uses bacterial fermentation to convert carbon monoxide into ethanol, said it has raised $3.5 million (US) in a first round of funding, led by Silicon Valley’s Khosla Ventures.
The technology will contribute to the cellulosic biofuels business by converting syngas produced through gasification into ethanol, the company said. The company wants to produce ethanol from steel mills, turning carbon emissions into fuels — a market as large… Continue Reading
FatKat to use quant investing to help you pick stocks
FatKat is the latest company aiming to make sense of the exploding amount of information on the Web and elsewhere to help you make better investment decisions.
It has yet to launch, but the Wellesley Hillis, Mass. company is worthy of mention because it builds on work by technologist Ray Kurzweil, who has given substantial thought about future trends. It is also backed with $2 million from some well-known investors, including Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod… Continue Reading
Brenco, sugar ethanol company, raises $200M
A San Paulo, Brazil ethanol company, Brenco, has raised $200 million in financing from investors including big-name U.S. investors such as Vinod Khosla, supermarket magnate Ron Burkle and AOL co-founder Steve Case.
The new company, aims to become one of the largest ethanol producers in the world, apparently wanting to reach an annual output of 1 billion gallons within ten years, according to Dow Jones.
Brazi’s sugar-based ethanol is more efficient than the corn-based ethanol produced in… Continue Reading
Grand Challenge downtown, Sparter frees your game $, Visto revisited…
Latest round-up in the world of tech:
Defense Department’s Grand Challenge moves downtown — The great annual race of robotic cars, until this year held in the desert, is moving downtown. The DARPA-sponsored event awards the winner $2 million. Unmanned vehicles will attempt to avoid people and buildings instead of boulders and sagebrush, with no remote control or other human interference. (See Merc story here.) The goal is to help the Defense Department fulfill a Congressional mandate:… Continue Reading
Green revolution rocks on, Khosla already making money
Latest green technology developments:
Vinod Khosla is rocking after barely two years — Khosla (pictured below), the Silicon Valley venture capitalist who hit it big during the telecom boom in the 1990s, turned two years ago to embrace green technoloy. We thought his outlandish bets on untested technologies such as celulosic ethanol – which most experts caution will be only be commercially viable in two years, at the earliest — would take some time to show results…. Continue Reading
Green-tech roundup: Khosla flies the coop and more
Green activity continues at a torrid pace, from expansion by green investors like Vinod Khosla into bigger offices, to the embrace of green business models by struggling telecom companies. Are we getting a little heated?
Khosla finally leaves Kleiner nest — Vinod Khosla (pictured left), one of the most successful venture capitalists during the telecom boom of the late 1990s, split from venture firm Kleiner Perkins a couple of years to go out on his own, launching… Continue Reading
Showdown between VCs and oil industry
Silicon Valley venture capital firms like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and lone ranger investors like Vinod Khosla, continue to push for legislation that irks the oil industry.
The New York Times has the latest, citing Kleiner Perkins’ partner John Denniston (pictured here) arguing that renewable biofuel companies like Altra should get some of the subsidy for gas alternatives, and that it shouldn’t all go to the oil industry.
Mr. Denniston also wants to see a change… Continue Reading
Ethanol use causing corn shortages, spiking price of tortillas
Tortilla prices are going up, causing hardship for the poor in Mexico, apparently because of all the use of ethanol in the U.S.
The U.S. is making lots of ethanol out of corn, to use as an alternative to gasoline — creating a shortage of corn for people wanting to make tortillas. Indeed, there some 100 more ethanol plants being planned, which will eat up even more corn — and this comes despite doubts about whether… Continue Reading