Three VC Firms Picked to Extract Green Tech from Federal Labs

Last week, three venture capital firms were chosen by the Department of Energy (DOE) to participate in its new Entrepreneurship in Residence (EIR) program, a pilot initiative designed to get advanced energy technologies out of the federal labs and into the marketplace. In the program’s design, an entrepreneur affiliated with each venture capital firm will work with the selected DOE laboratory staff in order to identify and evaluate marketable technologies.

 

The selected venture capital firms and their respective federal laboratories are:

• Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (Menlo Park, CA) to work with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory;
• ARCH Venture Partners (Chicago) to work at Sandia National Laboratory; and,
• Foundation Capital (Menlo Park, CA) to investigate technologies at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The DOE is providing $100,000 to each entrepreneur to defray salary and other expenses. The partnering venture capital fund is expected to match that amount, plus provide additional funds if needed.

 

The entrepreneur in residence and the venture capital fund will select a technology developed within the federal laboratory, and subsequently negotiate a licensing agreement in order to create and finance a start-up company. The program will use a Standard License Agreement to hasten the commercialization process; the agreement contains a provision allowing the EIR to offer brief ownership in the start-up venture as payment for the license.

 

If successful, DOE's Office of Energy and Renewable Energy anticipates funding the program in yearly cycles, with the government accepting bids from interested venture capital firms. The next three firms will then be chosen to extract different green energy technologies from the federal laboratory system.

 

More information about the EIR program can be found at: http://www.energy.gov/news/5661.htm