DOE Partners With VC Firms to Launch Renewable Energy Businesses
At the Cleantech Forum XVI in San Francisco on February 27, 2008, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Andy Karsner announced the three venture capital firms chosen to partner with the Department of Energy to place an Entrepreneur in Residence in national research labs. Each venture capital firm will select an entrepreneur to work very closely with a particular lab to speed commercialization of research in renewable energy technology.
I spoke with Steve Vassallo, Principal at one of the chosen firms, Foundation Capital, who explained that the different labs that are part of the DOE own the intellectual capital for the research done in the labs. Although the labs can generate revenue to support further research by licensing the intellectual property to businesses, they are not always eager to do this. For one thing is it complicated. Negotiating a licensing deal can be time-consuming and it is not necessarily the key skill of a group led by top research scientists. Whereas, commercializing new ideas is the expertise of venture capital firms.
With the Entrepreneur In Residence program, the DOE is adopting a model that has worked well for venture capital firms in the past, that is to pay an entrepreneurial person to find a business opportunity instead of just waiting for proposals to come to them. Of the origin of this public-private partnership, Vassallo says, “Secretary Karser is a private-sector guy in a public position.”
