But the hundreds of C-level types who heard Steve Fludder, vice president of Ecomagination at GE, give a keynote address at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco on Wednesday would have been forgiven if they felt a rumble in their bellies. Mr. Fludder, in an hour-long, multimedia-packed presentation, described a wide-ranging energy agenda backed by billions of dollars in research and development spending that the diversified technology giant intends to pursue.
The agenda includes thin-film solar, carbon capture and sequestration, energy storage, organic light-emitting diodes, smart grid technology, and advanced desalinization, among other red-hot sectors that entrepreneurs and their venture backers like to think they have all to their own. No clean tech sector was overlooked by Mr. Fludder.
And much like the company’s recent media blitz around its clean tech initiatives, money isn’t a problem. GE plans to double its annual clean tech R&D spending to $1.5 billion by 2010, Mr. Fludder said. For perspective, that’s equivalent to nearly one-fifth the total global venture capital investment in all clean tech sectors last year.
But Mr. Fludder came bearing gifts to this conference, or at least the promise of gifts. He said GE is committed to partnering with clean tech startups, including acquisitions and equity positions.
The company’s buyout appetite will not change in 2009. “We’re as hungry as ever,” he said. GE built its water business by buying five water startups, he said, as an example of its big-spending ways.
Meanwhile, the venture capitalists and startup executives were feeling more at ease, more confident.
“No matter how good they say they are, they can’t be as innovative as a small group of people working 24 hours a day,” said Rolf Dekleer, vice president of Vancouver-based VC firm GrowthWorks Capital. “When I see GE and others getting into clean tech in a big way, I see exit opportunities.”
John Stokes, a “dealmaker” for the UK’s global entrepreneur program, wasn’t intimidated by GE’s massive energy agenda either.
“As a startup, this 100 percent incentivizes me,” he said. “We need companies like that that can acquire us, otherwise we have a harder time getting venture funding.”
With initial public offerings effectively closed for the near future, more hungry behemoths like GE lumbering around the clean tech industry appears to be a good thing.