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USD (2018) billion 5 5 Other energy

Other clean energy

4 4 Energy storage, hydrogen, fuel cells
3
Energy efficiency
3
Other renewables
2
2 Bioenergy
1
Solar
1
Transport
0 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1
Average 2007-11
Figure 2 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

nies are playing a larger role in riskier early-stage platform; APICORP and Equinor’s investment
CVC deals. Roughly half of CVC activity for energy in Yellow Door energy, a solar leasing fi rm; Iber-
start-ups in 2019 has come from the oil and gas, drola’s investment in Wallbox, a smart electric car
utilities and electricity equipment sectors. charger; and Tepco’s investment in Zenobe Energy,
Examples of these earlier stage deals include: an energy storage consultant (Figure 2).
BP’s investment in Belmont Technology, an artifi -
cial intelligence provider for oil and gas exploration;
Comcast’s investment in Dandelion Energy, a geo- Rising VC activity
thermal provider; Eni’s investment in Form Energy, Corporate activity in energy venture investing is
a long-duration electricity storage developer; Total taking place against the backdrop of rising ener-
and Equinor’s investment in Level10 Energy, a re- gy VC activity in general. At USD 2 billion, more
newables marketplace; NTT Docomo and Statkraf- money went into early-stage venture capital deals
Figure 3a-3b t’s investment in Metron Labs, an energy analytics for energy technology companies in the fi rst half of
2019 than the fi rst six months of any previous year,
except 2018.
USD (2018) million 5 4 While the growth in energy VC activity in recent
6
years has been driven by transport deals, non-
transport deals have made up more than half of the

2 3 deal value in 2019 so far. This may indicate a reba-
lancing between sectors after a fl urry of recent ac-
1 tivity around electric vehicles in particular, but it re-
mains too early to say. Some of the major recipients
0 of early-stage VC funding in 2019 include: Hozon
H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1
Automobile and Enovate Motors, Chinese develo-
2012 2012 2013 2013 2014 2014 2015 2015 2016 2016 2017 2017 2018 2018 2019
pers of performance electric cars; Commonwealth
Fusion, a lower-cost nuclear fusion system desi-
gner; CalBio, producers of new biogas digesters;
350
and Faraday Grid, an inventor of novel power grid
transformers.
300
Fewer but bigger investments
250
200 There are two trends behind these numbers that
reveal a changing sector.
150 First, the growing deal value represents fewer, lar-
ger deals. The number of VC deals for energy start-
100 ups is not rising. Yet, even excluding all outlier deals
of more than USD 50 million, the average deal size
50 in the fi rst half of 2019 was higher than for any year
since 2012 (Figure 3a-3b).
0
H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 H1
2012 2012 2013 2013 2014 2014 2015 2015 2016 2016 2017 2017 2018 2018 2019 Investments are not just
in North America
Note: Includes Seed, Series A, and Series B fi nancing deals with value less than USD 50
million. Energy sectors defi ned as above. H1 = fi rst 6 months of the year. Source: Cleantech Second, the geographical rebalancing of the ener-
Group (2019), i3 database and IEA analysis. gy VC market continues. As recently as 2013, 80%

30 30 Impiantistica Italiana - Novembre-Dicembre 2019