Obama DOE Picked More Energy Winners Than Silicon Valley VCs
October 21st, 2011 | by Susan Kraemer
With just 1.4% of its Recovery Act clean tech investments in "losers", it looks like the Obama administration is batting a much better average in "picking winners and losers" than the private Venture Capital (VC) market itself. The US government guarantee of a private loan to Solyndra, at $535 million, represented a minuscule 1.4% of the Department of Energy investment in all renewable technologies. By contrast - VCs (who were out $1 billion to Solyndra, for example) expect much higher failure rates. Richard Stuebi, who advises VCs on expected green energy failure rates, says that just 3 in 10 successes represents a successful VC investment strategy. That is 70% losers - not 1.4%
