VantagePoint Venture Partners has brought two new specialized partners aboard to strengthen its position in the cleantech sector. Mark Plashton hails from Trident Capital, where he also focused on green investments, and Brad Mattson is an engineer with 12 patents for semiconductor products. He has also served as chief executive of Novellus Systems and Mattson Technology.
Based in San Bruno, Calif., VantagePoint was one of the first major Silicon Valley firms to invest heavily in the cleantech sector. It closed its recent fund in this area, VantagePoint Cleantech Partners II, at $435 million in December. So far, its big investments are in electric car infrastructure company Better Place, solar-thermal tech maker BrightSource Energy, and waste-recovery companies Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies and Ze-Gen.
VantagePoint manages $4.5 billion in all. The addition of Plashton and Mattson follows that of another high-profile recruit, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who joined the firm's cleantech team in February.