Raising Investment Capital for Clean Energy Businesses

I’m in Manhattan this week for several purposes — one of which is to drum up support for an idea that is so obvious to me that I can’t understand why some people in this business regard it as novel. Just like mutual fund managers and venture capitalist hedge their bets with a wide range of portfolio companies, I’m working with a 130-year-old investment banking firm here to set up the first in a series of “unit trusts” — raising a total of about $100 million to launch 15 – 20 of what I believe to be the best start-up companies I’ve come across recently, based on business plan submissions.

I want to take a position in the fund myself. I know this sounds immodest, but I’ve always liked to bet on myself. I know that my focus is limited, in that my viewpoint of renewable energy is, by design, so broad that I don’t have the bandwidth to become an expert in any one discipline. But I like to think that I can weed out ideas — and I see plenty of them — that have little or no merit, and focus on a few select business concepts that truly have something to offer.

I guess we’ll see. If you see a “Make a Donation to Craig” link on the site, I  suppose you can infer that I wasn’t as wise as I thought I was.