Here is some interresting thoughts from CNET.
“With investors getting smarter and start-ups getting bought, the mood is brightening in green tech. But the high-profile companies seeking to go public this year have some industry watchers talking bubbles.
For proof, investors point to the spate of planned initial public offerings, including electric car maker Tesla Motors, solar company Solyndra, and biofuels maker Codexis. Smart-grid company Silver Spring Networks and biofuels maker Amyris are rumored to be on deck.
Long-term trends may favor innovative green companies, as concerns about energy resources and the environment grow. But that doesn’t mean this year’s leading companies can navigate the complex regulatory and financial environment to become successful companies, said Jack Robinson, founder of Winslow Management, which focuses on environmentally oriented public companies.
“Valuations seem to be ahead of themselves,” Robinson said. “Some of the people [in venture-backed green-tech companies] don’t have the history and don’t understand the pitfalls that need to be addressed from a technology, market, regulatory, and political point of view.”
An example of a company he considers highly valued is lithium ion battery maker A123 Systems, which went public last September. In addition to raising $371 million, it raised the hopes of many other young energy companies.
Investor Rob Day of Black Coral Capital did an analysis of four recent IPO filings in the green-tech area and was concerned when he found that their unofficial revenue numbers were far below the amount of money put into them.
Nonetheless, even early misfires don’t mean investors should write off the whole sector. The high-profile companies that have filed to go public aren’t the best indicators of what’s to come as many other companies could raise funding through private equity sources, rather than tapping the public stock market, Day argued.
“My worry is that if these IPOs are perceived later on this year as having been unsuccessful, it’ll once again set back the entire clean tech venture industry, because of the example it sets in terms of lack of (financial) exits,” he wrote.
Netscape moment ahead?
Even with the worries over financial returns for investors, there’s a reason that IPO hopefuls have gotten as far as they have. It’s widely recognized that Tesla Motors and Solyndra, for example, have developed innovative technologies. Tesla’s $109,000 Roadster has become a darling among the well-heeled and its planned Model S sedan, priced at about $57,000 before tax credits, has legions of fans even though it won’t be built for two more years.
Solyndra has developed a solar collector designed specifically for flat commercial rooftops. In its first installations, the company touts how quickly these collectors, which use curved thin-film solar cells, can be installed, which brings down the overall system cost.
As with many green-tech upstarts, though, both companies have big-time challenges. Solyndra and Tesla borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. Department of Energy to build manufacturing facilities and they face powerful competition, in the form of incumbent automakers and low-cost Chinese solar panel producers.”
Read the full article here.
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