Low-carbon ventures ask US Dragon's Den for support

Tricia Holly Davis

Four entrepreneurs will travel to America this month to face a Dragons’ Den-style panel of investors offering up to £13m to develop their lowcarbon technologies.
Each of the hopefuls will get 10 minutes to pitch their idea, from energy-saving solutions to renewable power devices.
The trip has been organised by the Setsquared Partnership, a collaboration of the universities of Bath, Bristol, Southampton and Surrey set up to nurture early-stage technology companies.
“Raising venture capital in Britain has been tough,” said Robert Beat of Bristol-based Silicon Basis, one of the firms going to the event in Boston. “Investors here are mostly saving their capital for existing investments and concentrating on late-stage technology, so the chance to pitch to American investors is well timed.”
Beat hopes to raise £400,000 to build a prototype of his low-energy microchip and another £4m to take the product to market. He said the technology would use a quarter of the power of typical programmable chips while in operation and a tenth of the power in stand-by mode. He estimates the potential global market at £50 billion a year.
David McSherry, founder of Bath-based Cormarent, which is developing a tidal power system, said planning delays and concerns about grid capacity had made British investors wary of backing renewableenergy technology.
McSherry said his deep-sea turbines had few moving parts to reduce the risk of mechanical failure and maximise electricity output. He needs £13m to test a prototype and build a large-scale demonstrator.
Peter Davies of Bath-based Green Running will be pitching for about £2m to move his energy-efficiency technology out of the lab phase. Green Running’s tool monitors equipment, such as air-conditioners, and calculates how much power they use during the day. It can also track gas and water consumption, and temperature and humidity. Davies believes that there are 500,000 potential customers in Britain.
Cascoda, from Southampton, is looking for £5m to develop its low-power wireless devices, which automate and control heating, air-conditioning and lighting systems.
The trip, co-funded by UK Trade & Investment, is the first formal early-stage investment mission for British clean-tech firms. It could help to create jobs and factories, and bolster green exports. Britain’s clean-tech industry is worth about £106 billion, or 3.5% of the global market. Only 10% of green goods and services are exported.
David Connell, a senior research associate at Cambridge University, said firms might be tempted to agree to majority American ownership, or even to relocate to America, to tap into the billions of dollars of start-up funding available from the government there.
Clean-tech industry has overtaken biotech and software as America’s largest sector for venture capital, with about £600m of transactions in the third quarter against Britain’s £75m, said Cleantech, a research group.
Nigel Taunt of Impax, a clean-energy investment firm, blamed British investors’ reluctance on the recession and the fact that many still viewed new technologies as high risk.
Simon Bond of Setsquared urged the government to support small venture investments of between £250,000 and £2.5m. “We are perilously close to losing a generation of start-ups because of the lack of early-stage seed funding,” he said.
Bond said the four entrepreneurs had been selected for the trip because they were at the stage where they were ready for investment. A similar expedition is planned for China.
“Going before the American dragons is scary but also exciting,” said McSherry. “I’ll be practising my pitch a lot.”
Green Idea Solar-powered racing cars hit 60mph
Cars powered by the sun may sound a bit far-fetched but they are surprisingly capable. The World Solar Challenge, a 2,000-mile race north to south across Australia, has been held every two years since 1987 and last week was won by an outsider — a team of students from Japan’s Tokai University. Their car led from the first day and zipped along at up to 60mph. The students struck only one problem, a flat tyre, but were still a day ahead of the rest of the field.