The Cleantech Group™, LLC, founder of the cleantech investment category, today announced Michael Goguen, Managing Partner of Sequoia Capital, will co-chair the North America Advisory Board of its Cleantech Network, the largest global network of cleantech investors and companies.
Goguen, who leads cleantech investing globally for Sequoia Capital, joins co-chair Dr. H. Jeffrey Leonard, CEO of the Global Environment Fund.
Past co-chairs have included John Rockwell of Element Partners, Ira Ehrenpreis of Technologic Partners and Stephan Dolezalek of VantagePoint Venture Partners.
Simultaneously, VT Bharadwaj of Sequoia Capital India joins the Cleantech Group's Indian Advisory Board, co-chaired by Dr. Avinash Patkar of the Tata Group and Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures.
As new co-chair, Goguen will open next week's Cleantech Forum XVIII in Washington, D.C., which will convene more than 600 of the world's leading investors at the forefront of the cleantech investment category"”representing over $3 trillion in capital"”together with entrepreneurs, scientists and policy-makers (details at http://www.cleantech.com/dcforum08).
Joining Goguen at Cleantech Forum XVIII is U.S. Undersecretary of Treasury David McCormick; Jason Grumet, energy and environment advisory to Obama for President; Stockholm, Sweden Mayor Sten Nordin; Peter Schwartz, cofounder of the Global Business Network; Frances Beinecke, President of NRDC and decision makers from leading private equity firms from North America, Europe, the Gulf and Asia.
Goguen, along with his partners in the US, Israel, India, and China actively seek cleantech businesses that are capital-efficient and possess strong intellectual property. Sequoia Capital led investments in A123 Systems in the U.S., a producer of next-generation lithium ion batteries, Changelight in China, a producer of LED lights and high efficiency solar cells, and Tribi in India, a producer of energy efficient motor controls for appliances. Sequoia Capital is an original investor in Google, Apple Computers and YouTube, and has been the leader in fostering market disrupting technology businesses since 1972.
"Sequoia Capital is looking forward to working with founders and management seeking to sustain the environment and its natural resources by building sustainable, enduring, and profitable companies. These cleantech success stories will be the positive forces of change in the energy, water, materials and transportation categories. It is a true privilege to serve as the advisory board co-chair of the Cleantech Group, the world's largest network of investors and companies in cleantech," Goguen said.
"The global cleantech sector is expanding rapidly to meet the very high demand for resource efficiency, and to profitably address global challenges such as climate change and water and agricultural scarcities," said John Balbach, manager partner of the Cleantech Group. "We welcome Sequoia Capital to a leadership position in the Cleantech Network and look forward to their discipline and approach to further strengthen the investment category."
About Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital provides venture capital funding to founders of startups who want to turn business ideas into companies. As the "Entrepreneurs Behind the Entrepreneurs", Sequoia Capital's Partners have worked with innovators such as Steve Jobs of Apple Computer, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Bob Swanson of Linear Technology, Sandy Lerner and Len Bozack of Cisco Systems, Dan Warmenhoven of Network Appliance, Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo!, Jen-Hsun Huang of nVIDIA, Michael Marks of Flextronics, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen of YouTube and Dominic Orr and Keerti Melkote of Aruba Wireless Networks. To learn more about Sequoia Capital visit www.sequoiacap.com.
About Cleantech Group™, LLC
The Cleantech Group pioneered the cleantech investment category in 2002. Today, it accelerates the development and market adoption of clean technologies globally through membership in the largest global network of investors and companies representing more than $3 trillion in assets. Member investors, growth companies/vendors, enterprises, service providers, and governments receive access to capital, investment deal flow, market leading research and data, insight, sales leads, human capital, and promotional opportunities. The Cleantech Group also produces the premier Cleantech Forum events worldwide. Details at http://www.cleantech.com.