In January 2018, Manoj Sinha-founder and CEO of Husk Power-was contemplating raising $20 million to scale operations for a second time. From 2007 through 2013, Husk built 80 biomass waste plants that provided electricity to 250,000 villagers and shop owners spread across 350 villages in rural India and Africa. But in 2015, Husk underwent a major pivot. Rather than providing power through biomass gasification alone, Husk shifted to plants that used biomass gasification, solar energy and battery power in tandem, allowing for power generation nearly 24-7. And rather than serving households as their core customer demographic, Sinha shifted Husk's focus to village commercial centers. To bring this vision to reality Sinha ceased operations of nearly all of the existing plant locations and began the conversion to new locations built around the "new" hybrid plant. Thus in 2015, Husk was operating a mere 10 power plants and serving roughly 2000 customers, down from the 80 plants and roughly 250,000 customers they had prior to this shift. After downsizing and reorganizing operations, was Husk Power once again ready to scale? Would impact investors be interested in providing the capital? Traditional, value-neutral investors? And which type of investors should the founders of Husk prefer?
The UPower founders, Jake DeWitte and Caroline Cochran, were recent graduates from MIT's Nuclear Science and Engineering Department. They chose to attend Palo Alto-based Y Combinator's accelerator program to focus on building a "mini" nuclear reactor that would produce up to ten MW of power and could fit in two 40-foot intermodal shipping containers. The UPower reactor was designed to serve the need for "off-grid" electric power. These off-grid customers were in remote locations such as mining operations, military bases, Arctic townships or even island nations. While DeWitte and Cochran were ecstatic about the progress they had made and the enthusiastic open-mindedness of Bay Area investors to backing groundbreaking and even potentially contentious "big ideas," they wondered if their investors would have the patience to finance UPower over the long term.
On December 8th 2013, as Dr. David Keith was leaving the set of the Colbert Show, he couldn't help but replay the interview over and over in his mind. Did he actually get his point of view on solar geoengineering across or had he just added to the stereotype that he was more of a 'mad scientist' than a scholar? Science knew, beyond doubt, that volcanoes cooled the planet by forcing sulfates high into the stratosphere. This cooling effect had been recorded in history over and over again. The question that Keith and many other climate scientists wanted to answer was: could humanity learn how to design, deploy, and manage similar cooling effects to manage the threats from climate change?
In some parts of the world, the impacts of climate change will prove to be relatively manageable, particularly for the rich. In some parts of the world, these will not, particularly for the poor. The only certainty is that humanity's collective actions will force every individual to answer that classic question, "Are you feeling lucky?"
In late 2013, Husk Power Systems found itself falling further and further behind plan. The founding CEO had decided to resign. His co-founder is faced with the decision of quitting his corporate job in the US to head to India and help form a new management team. Husk is an Indian startup founded in 2007 with the goal of global rural electrification. The company has decided to pivot from operating biomass gasification plants towards developing solar microgrids in India and East Africa.
Strava is a new fast-growing social network for the avid cyclist and runner. The Strava case traces the entrepreneurial journey of two serial entrepreneurs who have been co-founders in a prior venture, and who have co-founded Strava 3 years ago. The protagonists must decide whether or not to accept the Series A investment terms from their venture capitalists.
Dr. David Keith, President of Carbon Engineering, a company based in Calgary, Alberta, is commercializing a technology to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. The company plans to market the captured CO2 to produce low carbon transportation fuels in markets such as California where regulation, derived from a state law designed to manage climate change, restricts the maximum carbon intensity of transportation fuel.
C12 aimed to build not only a company, but an entire industry around carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). "You change the world by building a market, and you build a market by building a profitable company that other people copy," said Dawe, C12 Energy's CEO. "In the energy business, you build a company one project at a time. Moving forward with this first project is where we hope to begin to change the world."
In November 2006, Chris Michel left Military.com, which he founded in 1999, to start Affinity Labs, a global network of online communities. That month, Michel raised a Series A round of venture funding and established a partnership with Monster, which he had sold Military.com to. Within its first year of operations, Affinity Labs launched eight vertical portals including PoliceLink, NursingLink, TechCommunity, and IndiaOn. While the company was well ahead of its original plan to release four portals in 2007, Michel still faced a number of challenges. He had learned a great deal from Military.com and Affinity Labs' first launches, but in the case of each new community was faced with how best to construct the vertical and attract a sufficiently large audience. While the model seemed highly scalable because each vertical used the same core technology, every sector had its unique features. In the fall of 2007, executives from Monster opened up a dialogue with Michel about selling the company or expanding their relationship. Michel wondered if the time was right to sell or if he should grow Affinity Labs further with the hope of creating a company that could command the high valuations seen recently by a number of social networking concerns.
John Gilleland, CEO of TerraPower, returned to his office after a lengthy meeting with potential investors. It was October 2012, and TerraPower was in the process of raising a $200M Series C round to finance the ongoing development of its next-generation nuclear reactor. Though early in the fundraising process, Gilleland noted that this most recent conversation was similar to conversations with other interested cleantech growth equity investors. The conversations circled around a common theme: "This is the biggest idea that's ever been presented at our partners' meeting. We love what you're doing, but it's not right for us as an investment." Outside of raising money from typical growth equity and infrastructure funds, Gilleland could partner with a government and/or form a joint venture with an existing nuclear power player. Reliance Industries as an investor in TerraPower could provide an entry point into the fast growing Indian market. At the same time, Gilleland and Gates had talked with China National Nuclear Corp. about a possible cooperation with TerraPower. Whom should Gilleland call next?
Foro Energy developed proprietary and patent-pending fiber-laser technologies that could disrupt existing processes and services for the exploration and production of oil and natural gas. These breakthrough laser technologies were protected by a strong intellectual property (IP) portfolio, which provided Foro with the flexibility to pursue a number of different business models. The market potential for oilfield applications was large, as global spending in the O&G E&P industry was expected to approach $600 billion in 2012.
Foro Energy developed proprietary and patent-pending fiber-laser technologies that could disrupt existing processes and services for the exploration and production of oil and natural gas. These breakthrough laser technologies were protected by a strong intellectual property (IP) portfolio, which provided Foro with the flexibility to pursue a number of different business models. The market potential for oilfield applications was large, as global spending in the O&G E&P industry was expected to approach $600 billion in 2012.
For some time, 1366's co-founders, Frank van Mierlo and Ely Sachs, had faced a choice, which was now made all the more stark: 1366 could expand to produce silicon wafers itself, raising the required capital from "friendly" investors and building shipment volume slowly, or 1366 could accelerate its market entry dramatically by partnering with the Asian manufacturers that had begun to dominate the world-wide solar industry. While accelerated growth was attractive to 1366 and its current investors, the company believed that it would face considerable risks if it were to expose its intellectual property to the "wrong" partners. 1366 had no intention of losing control of its technology, but given the pace of innovation and the active role of governments in the solar industry, van Mierlo and Sachs feared this might not be a race that could be won by the cautious.
In the three years since Bishop and Button purchased Verengo in a leveraged buyout (LBO), the company had gone through dramatic changes. Initially a residential windows and insulation firm, after the economic recession of 2008 the company switched gears and began offering solar installations to local residential customers. Aided by favorable regulatory changes and a consumer financing partnership, Verengo's solar business took off and became the company's primary focus. By the end of 2010, Verengo had grown to $27 million in revenue and was the largest solar integrator in Southern California. In December 2010, Verengo raised $9.7 million in growth equity funding and was considering its options for future growth. Eager to expand to markets outside of Southern California, Bishop and Button knew that they had to carefully assess the firm's many opportunities and tightly manage its growth.
Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, the three founders of Airbnb, an online private accommodation rental market, stared at each other across the kitchen table in their San Francisco apartment. It was March of 2009. A single sheet of paper sat on the table in front of them. The three founders were on the verge of finishing the three month program at YCombinator (YC), a business accelerator located in Mountain View, CA.
Samir Kaul, a Partner at Khosla Ventures, looked out his office window. It was late June, 2011, and like almost every day in Menlo Park, the sun was shining. Kaul was reflecting on what had been a very positive 10 months in the venture capital business. Over that span, he had helped three of his portfolio companies through IPOs, and helped Khosla Ventures raise its third fund, bringing the total outside capital raised by the group to more than $2.1B.
For some time, 1366's co-founders, Frank van Mierlo and Ely Sachs, had faced a choice, which was now made all the more stark: 1366 could expand to produce silicon wafers itself, raising the required capital from "friendly" investors and building shipment volume slowly, or 1366 could accelerate its market entry dramatically by partnering with the Asian manufacturers that had begun to dominate the world-wide solar industry. While accelerated growth was attractive to 1366 and its current investors, the company believed that it would face considerable risks if it were to expose its intellectual property to the "wrong" partners. 1366 had no intention of losing control of its technology, but given the pace of innovation and the active role of governments in the solar industry, van Mierlo and Sachs feared this might not be a race that could be won by the cautious.