RENEWABLOG

Cleantech & Green Venture Funding: Khosla Antis-Up $1.1 Billion

Major and somewhat astonishing financing news for cleantech companies today as Khosla Ventures has managed to raise the biggest venture capital fund since 2007 in what people have called an impossible fund-raising environment. Vinod Khosla obviously still sees tremendous opportunity for investing in early-stage cleantech companies with the hopes that one or more become one of the "ten Googles" he predicted would emerge from Cleantech earlier this year.

It also seems incredibly Warren Buffet like to be raising a fund at a time when others have turtled and to be investing capital when other VCs are a bit concerned about the corporate viability of their investments. Maybe now is the best time to be investing, when cleantech company risk seems low due to more reasonable valuations and with an increase in government loans and support. If the recent boom in cleantech and green patents is any indication, there will be a lot of companies looking for money in the coming 12-24 months.

The firm also announced that it has brought on Facebook's former CFO, giving it more cache with social media and web 2.0 start ups. What does this all mean for the green PR and marketing world?

It means that the demise of cleantech has been dramtically exaggerated and that we're likely to see an investment recovery in 2010, continuing the trend that started in Q2. It also means that cleantech and green marketers should use the Khosla fund as a proof point that things are only going to get noisier and that competitor marketing coffers are likely to increase over the next 12 months.

Khosla's fund will likely be the buzz as Vinod Khosla keynotes AlwaysOn GoingGreen in two weeks.