Clean energy investments continue to be strong

Nth Power today released the results of their annual survey of "energy tech" venture investing.

The bottom line is the headline -- such investments totalled $520m in the US in 2004, up slightly from 2003's $509m.

But some of the more interesting bits are in the details.

• The firm's data tracked 69 applicable transactions, for an average deal size of $7.5m. That average is up a bit from 2003, but there were more deals done in that year (84).

• 40% of all funding went to companies in California. What does this mean? Are 40% of the investable energy tech startups located in California? An argument could be made that this shows there are as yet untapped investment opportunities in energy tech outside of the west coast...

• The data shows that funders' interest was largely captured by generation-related technologies -- "distributed generation" investments rose 34%, fuel cell deals rose by 40% (although this was also driven by "battery replacement" applications), and solar investments jumped by 62%.
  

Fine work by Rodrigo Prudencio and the rest of the Nth Power team.