Some questions to ask in Toronto

Headed up to Toronto this afternoon, for the hyper-networking experience that is the semi-annual Cleantech Venture Forum.  Looking forward to catching up with everyone, since I haven’t been able to make it to one of these for quite a while—should be something like 500-600 participants, I’ve heard.  A big change from a few years back, when just hitting triple-digits was a big deal.

Here are some suggested questions to ask while handing out handshakes, execsums and business cards:

1. Is Heliovolt’s $101mm Series B a sign of things to come, or does it mark an inflection point in the solar sector?
2. Now that first biofuels, and now solar have gone “supernova”, what’s the next hot sector?
3. Cleantech may be hot, but it seems like (money-wise) medical tech is even hotter.  So why don’t you see a lot of articles written about dire predictions of “investment bubbles” in that sector?  What’s special about cleantech that brings out the skeptics among the punditry class?
4. Clean technology R&D is everywhere.  So why do some regions seem to enjoy a lot more startup creation activity than others?  What are the key limiting factors affecting all other potential “cleantech clusters” outside of Northern California?
5. Who are the favorites to win one of the three recently-announced Federal Energy Lab Entrepreneur-In-Residence spots?
6. Will Nick Parker show up dressed as the Cleantech Avenger?

Joking aside, looking forward to it.  For those who can make it to the energy efficiency panel on Friday morning, it should be a pretty good discussion, hope to see folks there.

Other news and notes:

• A123 announced another $30mm in fundraising, on top of their January $40mm round.  GE and CMEA participated in the round, along with other existing investors.

• Interesting to see VCs RockPort Capital and NGP Energy Technology Partners participating in a $10mm bridge loan and $25mm PIPE term sheet with SatCon.

Finally, THIS sure seems like an inflection point...