Kleiner Perkins: Solving the Energy Crisis through Clean Tech Investing
Event Date:
11/20/2008
Event Time: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Location: McNair Hall, Jones Graduate School
The Rice Alliance cordially invites you to join us as we present Kleiner Perkins:
Solving the Energy Crisis through Clean Tech Investing
- How a Leading Silicon Valley Venture Capital Firm is Tackling Renewable Energy
- What Texas Must Do to Retain Energy Leadership
Thursday, November 20, 2008
11:00 am - Registration
11:30 am - Lunch: Anderson Family Commons
12:00 pm - Program Begins
Speakers:
David H. Wells, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers
Joel Serface, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers
David H. Wells |
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Joel Serface |
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David joined the Greentech investing team at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers in May 2006. Responsibilities include knowledge mapping and opportunity sourcing across the entire landscape of Green Technologies. Building relationships with scientists and entrepreneurs throughout the US and Europe, David has helped bring many ventures through the KP investment process including due diligence, investment structuring, goal setting, and team building. Beginning with a collaboration with KP partner Bill Joy in 2004, David has built a detailed and diverse base of Greentech knowledge across multiple energy technologies and scientific disciplines, together with a matching knowledge base of resources, markets and incumbents. Every aspect of energy, planetary resources, and emissions has been studied in detail and mapped to target recognition of disruptive order-of-magnitude and tipping-point innovations. David’s background includes ten years of technical experience in marine and shipboard engineering, and eight years building and selling a ation-wide business in Japan.
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Joel joined Kleiner Perkins as an Entrepreneur in Residence in 2008 as part of its partnership with the US Department of Energy and will help the DOE realize the full commercialization potential of its investment into the National Renewable Energy Lab. Prior to joining KPCB, Joel was the Director of the Austin Clean Energy Incubator where he helped launch 5 renewable energy companies including ActaCell, Accuwater, Atonometrics, SAVE, and an algae biofuels company. In his time in Austin, Joel also launched the CleanTX Foundation, served as the Chairman of the Austin Clean Energy Council, and was a member of the Governor’s Competitiveness Council on Energy. Joel previously served as a Partner at Eastman Ventures leading its clean technology and nanotech investments and Sierra Ventures where he made its first clean technology investment. Joel received his B.S. in Chemical and Environmental Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management where he received the Patrick McGovern Award for Entrepreneurial Leadership for starting the first MIT Venture Capital Conference.
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“We urgently need to advance our greentech industry at a speed and scale commensurate with the challenges we face,” said KPCB Partner John Doerr. “We believe green technologies are both the key to solving our energy crisis and a tremendous business opportunity.”
In May 2008, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers announced a new $500 million investment vehicle: the Green Growth Fund. The fund is intended to help speed mass market adoption of solutions to the world’s climate crisis. In addition, in May, KPCB announced KPCB XIII, a $700 million fund that will invest in greentech, information technology and life sciences ventures. Within the greentech sector, KPCB XIII will mainly back early-stage entrepreneurs, while the Green Growth Fund will support companies that have already entered their growth phase. To read more, please click here.
Since its founding in 1972, KPCB has backed entrepreneurs in over 475 ventures, including AOL, Align Technology, Amazon.com, Citrix, Compaq Computer, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Genomic Health, Google, IDEC Pharmaceuticals, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Netscape, Lotus, LSI Logic, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, Verisign and Xilinx. More than 150 of the firm's portfolio companies have gone public. The firm has offices in Menlo Park, California; Beijing, China and Shanghai, China. More information can be found on our website.
Sponsorship Opportunities - Table Sponsorship
There are several benefits to sponsoring a table at the luncheon including:
- Recognition of your organization as an Table Sponsor
- Preferred table location for your party of 8 guests
- Validated parking for your table (up to 8 per table)
Please contact alliance@rice.edu for further details regarding sponsorship.
*If you require a vegetarian option, please email alliance@rice.edu after registering
Registration closes on Monday, November 17th at 5 p.m. Please note that seating is limited and due to the popularity of this event, we will NOT be accepting walk-up registration. Graduate students with research interests in clean technology are encouraged to attend.
Click here for directions to the Jones Graduate School of Management.
REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED
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