Spring Ventures is a multi-strategy investment fund founded by Sunil Paul that invests in and incubates novel clean energy technologies, companies and projects that attempt to address climate change and energy security.

Investment Philosophy

Spring Ventures is driven by the conviction that the power of commerce, markets, and entrepreneurship can tackle climate change, energy security, and environmental degradation if properly channeled. The first cut for investment is whether the effort can make a major impact on climate change and energy security using the Gigaton Throwdown framework. From that point forward, decisions are strictly driven by business logic. Since Spring Ventures is not constrained by a single financial strategy, it is willing to create and back projects that follow the traditional venture path of financing as well as other approaches like project development or buyouts. What is ultimately important is finding strong teams with the right business theses around solving climate change through the development and implementation of clean technologies. Entrepreneurs that are innovative, passionate, ethical, and honest best reflect the firms values-driven model and are the most likely to be considered for funding.

Sunil Paul, Founding Partner, has a track record of forming successful companies as well as making high performance investment decisions. He began cleantech investing in 2002 because he believed that the macro forces of environmental regulation combined with climate change and energy security are creating new pressures on the energy market. In conjunction with new technological advances from a variety of fields (e.g., semiconductors, biotechnology, the Internet, computer science, surface science, and nanotechnology), Sunil believes these forces can and will produce profound breakthroughs when applied to the problem of climate change and the issues inherent in the energy and transportation industry.

Nick Allen, Partner, began his focus on clean energy in 2003 with a goal to combine knowledge of financial markets and transaction experience with a passion for climate and the environment.  Most recently he led Morgan Stanley’s equity research efforts in clean energy, where he was the #1 ranked equity analyst in stock performance across the entire firm.  His focus spanned power and transportation industries including solar, wind, efficiency, smart grid, emission reduction and advanced energy storage markets.  Nick held similar roles at financial services firms ThinkEquity Partners and Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

Examples from the Portfolio

Advent Solar: manufacturing back-contact solar cells and modules (sold to Applied Materials)

Nanosolar: manufacturing low-cost solar cell technology

Oorja Protonics: manufacturing alcohol-based fuel cell systems

Solazyme: developing algae-based biofuels and green chemicals

Spride: developing transportation services

Thin Silicon: developing low cost silicon solar cell technology (sold)

Zeachem: developing cellulosic fuels and chemicals

© 2007 Spring Ventures, LLC. All rights reserved.