Prospects for cleantech venture capital investment in China: A third wave?

Abstract

With peoples' concerns about China's environmental problems, CleanTech-related fields are getting more attentions by the Chinese government. The author studies CleanTech Venture Capital (VC) in China because it may represent a third wave of VC investments. The first two waves were Information Technology and Communication. CleanTech is different from other investment categories because it is closely related to environment protection, energy efficiency, ecosystem, government policy and sustainable development of the society. Also, it drives the innovation of technology in clean energy areas. Despite the current global economic downturn, green energy still shows its huge appeal of VC. VC investors from Silicon Valley continue to have a strong interest in the cooperation of green energy projects between China and the U.S., including electric cars, solar energy, green construction and other fields. This paper focuses on studying the current China's CleanTech VC investment environment, exploring potential investment tendency, indicating several challenges facing to the investors, and seeking practical ways to attract more investments in China's CleanTech. The study suggests several key ways to gain successes in CleanTech VC investment. Whether China's CleanTech become the third wave for VC investment needs the collaborated efforts from all the interest-related parties.