Ma: Clean Tech 1.0 failed because VCs misjudged capital intensity and commodities
Liqian Ma · Sustainable Investing 2: Liqian Ma – Allocator Perspective (Capital Allocators, EP.140) · Jun 11, 2020 · at 49:29
Liqian Ma, Head of Impact Investing Research at Cambridge Associates, explains why institutional and venture capital clean tech investments collapsed during the 2000s boom and bust.
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“Just to distill it down, I think what happened there was there was certainly a lot of overhype, capital flowing in, especially by firms who May not have really developed the deep expertise on the sector. They may have developed expertise in semiconductors or software, but seeing this opportunity at the time, I think their skill sets, especially some of the venture cap, early stage venture capital investors, didn't quite appreciate the capital intensity, the commodity risks of the sector, and were pursuing opportunities that were really outside their sweet spot.”
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