VENTURE CAPITAL A DRIVING FORCE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CLEANTECH INDUSTRYIN THE U.S.A

Venture capitalists’ trends have been changing over time reflecting the fast reaction of the industry to emerging investment opportunities. The so called cleantech industry is the new target market for the venture capital (VC), especially in the U.S.A. Climate change and environmental concerns, increasing oil prices and governmental policies have driven the tendency towards sustainable energy. While ICT and biotech have attracted the majority of the research literature little attention has been paid in the renewable energy sector. After a detailed presentation of the cleantech and the VC industries in the present paper, an empirical analysis conducted, aiming to prove the contribution of the VC financing to the development of the renewable energy technologies in the U.S.A. Comparing a number of cleantech firms with equal number of consumer web businesses it was found that cleantech industry appears to grow in terms of innovativeness and establishing networks. Human capital was also found to be a significant factor in the development of the renewable energy sector in the U.S.A.