Cleantech investments skyrocket in 4Q05

Following up on yesterday’s cleantech market growth news comes impressive data from the Cleantech Venture Network today, showing that a half a billion dollars were invested into cleantech startups by VCs in the fourth quarter last year.  Matt Marshall’s already got the scoop (as well as a link to the press release), and he contrasts these totals with total semiconductor venture investments in the same period.

These results show a huge uptick in VC activity in cleantech sectors, a 60% increase on fourth quarter numbers from 2004, and an 18% increase on 3Q05 figures.  The numbers show that cleantech grew to 10% of all venture investments in the quarter.  Sure, one can go back and forth on the specific figures (and the Cleantech Venture Network does a terrific job with an inherently impossible task), but the directional answer is clear—these results simply put some numbers down to back up the clear trend toward more and more VC investments in clean technologies.

Here’s the AP newswire story.