While investments in the sector are up globally, 2011 has been a less favourable year for IPO-led exits. The sector reported 51 IPOs worth $9.59 billion, down over 41 per cent from 2010. There are, however, signs of consolidation in the sector with mergers and acquisitions worth $41.2 billion, a growth of 153 per cent (disclosed value of 119 deals out a total of 391).

China has had a particularly good year. At $534 million in funds raised, it ranks second after North America, which raised $6.81 billion over 470 deals. In terms of number of deals, China with 43 deals ranks third after the United Kingdom which closed 59 deals. The largest IPO in the sector came from China – state owned hydro power company Sinohydro raised $2.12 billion on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The top three investors in terms of rounds of funding were Kleiner Perkins Caulfied & Byers, DFJ Global Network and New Enterprise Associates. Solar was the highest funded sector, netting $1.81 billion across 111 deals.

D.Light Design

Founded in 2007 by Stanford Business School graduates Goldman, Tozun, Xianyi Wu, Erica Estrada and Gabriel Risk, D.Light is best described as a micro-multinational. It makes solar-powered lighting solutions for bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers. The company is headquartered in the Cayman Islands with corporate headquarters effectively in Palo Alto, California. Product design and international sales and marketing is based in Hong Kong. Manufacturing and design is done out of Shenzhen in China and its primary markets are India and Africa. The company’s product offering currently includes three solar lighting products: the S250 solar lantern and mobile charger, the S10 lantern and the Solata S380 study light. Revenues and profit numbers are not known.

New CEO Donn Tice has been an advisor to D.Light since March 2008 and joined the board in November 2008. He earlier founded Sustainable Solutions in 2006 which helped consumer and cleantech private equity investors growth their portfolios, served as CEO of Nano-Tex between 2003 and 2006 (where he built a stain-resistant fabirc technology into a successful consumer nanotech business) and led Winterland between 1997 and 2002, growing sales from $30 million to $110 million. At D.Light he has been closely involved with the firm’s fundraising and product launches.

D.Light has raised several rounds of funding from investors such as Nexus Venture Partners, Omidyar Network, Acumen Fund, DFJ, Gray Matters Capital, Garage Technology Ventures and Mahindra & Mahindra. The company raised a $5.5 million Series B round last June from Omidyar Network and existing investors. It raised a $5.5 million Series A round in November 2008. The round was led by Nexus and included a posse of investors including Mahindra and DFJ.

Image Courtesy: D.Light Design

[media-credit name="Snigdha Sengupta" align="alignnone" width="199"][/media-credit]D.Light Design

“The judges were particularly impressed with their highly effective marketing strategy which has put solar lighting within reach of over a million people in 32 countries…” said Sarah Butler-Sloss, founder-director of the Ashden Awards. The awards were instituted in 2001 to encourage the greater use of local sustainable energy to address climate change and alleviate poverty. So far, they have rewarded 140 winners globally. The total prize money this year, shared by five winners, including D.Light, was £140,000.

This is the second windfall for the solar lighting company in recent days. Just last week it announced a $5.5 million Series B round of funding led by Omidyar Network. Existing investors Acumen Fund, Gray Matters Capital, Draper Fisher Jurverston and Garage Technology Ventures also participated in this round. The company raised $6 million in Series A funding in November 2008. Other investors include Nexus Venture Partners and Mahindra & Mahindra.

Read founder-CEO Sam Goldman’s blog for more on the D.Light story. The company’s Indian operations, which primarily involve marketing and sales, are headquartered in New Delhi.

(Source: Press Release)

Biggest Gathering of CleanTech Companies in India

Date: Thursday, December 17, 2009

Time: 9.oo am to 6.00 pm

Venue: Marriot Convention Center, Hyderabad

More details on the event website or here

Register here

Agenda

• 9.00 am – 1.00 pm: Renewable Energy, presentations by 20 renewable energy companies
• 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm: Lunch Break
• 2.00 pm – 4.00 pm: Energy Efficiency and Services, presentations by 10 energy efficiency companies
• 4.00 pm – 5.00 pm:  Recycling and Transportation, presentations by recycling companies
• 5.00 pm – 6.00 pm: Smart Grid and M2M, presentations by 5 smart grid companies

Source: Press Release

Photo Courtesy: TiE

Khosla has been investing in startups from his own capital pool through Khosla Ventures for the last few years. In India, one of his early bets was SKS Microfinance, in which he led Small Industries Development Bank of India and others to invest Rs 11 crore ($2.5 million) in 2006. Khosla Ventures has a wide range in terms of investment ticket sizes (investment per company) from $100,000 to $20 million (or more) and particularly likes companies in the mobile, alternative energy and bio-refineries spaces. That should be a pretty good indicator of what Khosla’s new funds are going to invest in. No doubt that India will be on his radar.

While we wait for Khosla to give out specifics on his investment plans, here’s a look at who else has been investing in clean technology companies in India:

• Venture capitalists and private equity firms invested $131 million in Indian cleantech companies in the second quarter of 2009, according to Cleantech Group — see the press release here. Hyderabad-based Ramky Enviro Engineers picked up $42 million (Rs 200 crore) from Standard Chartered IL&FS Asia Infrastructure Growth Fund — the biggest deal of the quarter.
• Silicon Valley-based Deeya Energy, which has a factory in Gurgaon, raised $30 million in Series C funding from Technology Partners, BlueRun Ventures, DFJ and others in May.
• Last August, Nexus India Capital launched its second India fund with a $220 million corpus. The new fund’s stated investment mandate is to put money in clean technology, among other businesses. It has invested in Mumbai-based SEDEMAC Mechatronics, and IIT Bombay incubated startups that has developed electronic control modules which increase the fuel efficiency and reduce emissions of small engines, and Noida-based D.light Design, which is using solar and LED technologies to provide affordable lighting solutions in villages.
• DFJ is a fairly active investor in the sector. Its portfolio here includes Deeya Energy, D.light Design and Reva.
• Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers (KPCB), which incidentally is the firm where Khosla shot to fame as Silicon Valley’s number on venture capitalist some years ago (he is still an affiliated partner), is also a big cleantech enthusiast. It had invested in Kotak Urja last year. VC Circle has a very timely interview up today with KPCB India partner Ajit Nazre — read here.

Husk Power Systems: This cleantech company, headquartered in the US and Patna, India, is a great example of young students with their heads screwed on right. Husk Power Systems is a next generation energy company. It has developed a proprietary generator that runs on gas released by heating rice husk. The company currently provides electricity using its generators to five Indian villages, as a pay-for-use service,  and plans to expand to a 100 soon – New York Times article. The team is an interesting bunch. Three – Manoj Sinha, Gyanesh Pandey and Ratnesh Yadav – are natives of Bihar and in their early thirties. Sinha started exploring the idea — turning farm waste into electricity — while working with Intel in the US as a microprocessor designer. In 2007, he later teamed up with a fellow student, Charles Ransler at the University of Virginia, and Pandey, who was in India, to set up the company. Pandey now handles operations on the ground here with Yadav.

Innoz Technologies: Last year this Trivandrum-based startup launched SMSGyan, a text messaging interface for trivia. The company started up in August 2008 as an incubatee at the Technopark Technology Business Incubator in Trivandrum. It has also received some funding from Upstart.in and CIIE, Ahmedabad, through the iAccelerator programme. The founders — Deepak Ravindran, Abhinav Shree, Ashwin Nath and Mohammed Hisamuddin — are students from LBS College of Engineering — and are all in their twenties.

Of the two, my vote goes to Husk Power Systems, which addresses a real problem in India and already has a fairly successful track record to show. All the best.

Cleantech VC Investments Double to Nearly $8 billion in 2008, But Could Drop in ’09 (Mercury News)

Ashish Gupta of Helion on Processes, Execution and Organization Structure in Startups (Medianama)

Dandelife’s Struggles Offer Lessons for Startups (ReadWriteWeb)

Getting Attention (and Cash) From VCs and Angel Investors (Examiner)

Steve Jurvetson on Focusing on Cleantech During the Slowdown (VentureBeat)

The Outlook for Venture Capital (The New Entrepreneur)

Venture Capital’s Favourite Startups (Businessweek Small Biz)

Which States are Favoured by Entrepreneurs in India? (Dare Blog)

Going by the US and European deal flow reports, globally every fourth or fifth deal in the early stage category seems to be in a cleantech company. It is probably time to look at this sector in a more disciplined manner, especially since a clutch of local venture capital teams here are sizing up the market. A few names are familiar, among them Nexus India Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Baring Private Equity.

In other notable news this week, one more online media startup hit the road. Nikhil Pahwa, the former editor of Contensutra in India, launched his own outfit Medianama on Friday.