Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future · chapter 12 · id zero-to-one-c12-02-cleantech-companies-collective
“Cleantech companies collectively lost massive amounts of capital (Thiel claims investors poured more than $50 billion into cleantech). Most failed because they couldn't answer Thiel's '7 questions' about engineering, timing, monopoly, people, distribution, durability, and secrets.”
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Receipts
MIT Energy Initiative (2016) -- Venture Capital and Cleantech: The Wrong Modelsource alive
VC firms invested over $25 billion in cleantech from 2006-2011, with less than half returned. Cleantech offered VCs a dismal risk/return profile, dragged down by companies developing new materials, chemistries, or processes that never achieved manufacturing scale.
Bessemer Venture Partners -- Eight Lessons from the First Climate Tech Boom and Bustsource alive
Of the $25 billion VCs poured into CleanTech 1.0 (2006-2011), more than 50% was lost by 2015. Failed companies could never transition from pilot to development phase.
Free in Energy -- How Venture Investors Lost $10 Billion in the Cleantech Collapsesource alive
VC-specific losses were approximately $10 billion. The broader $50B figure Thiel cites likely includes government subsidies, project finance, and other non-VC investment categories.
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