Welcoming the newest member of the cleantech VC community…

...Al Gore.

If there was a Nobel Prize for PR, Kleiner would win it hands down.  Time and again, they do a masterful job of getting reverential mass media attention for their partners and their portfolio companies.  Some VC firms shun attention, but I think it can actually be a valuable tool for dealflow, and for helping open doors for value-add at the board level, when it’s done correctly.

The news today that Al Gore has joined Kleiner’s team is a great example of how it can be done very well.  I’ve personally been fielding calls from reporters all day looking for “reactions”, and probably many others in the community have been as well.  The media cycle is in full spin…

Reactions probably won’t be universally positive (Jean-Luc seems unimpressed), but besides being a very smart move for both Kleiner and Al (and Generations IM), this is a good thing for the sector.  It just shows how the sector is now mainstream.  It’s really amazing to watch how what is now called “cleantech” (or, to give Kleiner their PR due, “greentech”) has gone from the sidelines to the headlines over the past decade-plus that I’ve been working on environmental innovation.  Even in 2004, there were only a handful of us VCs focused on the sector, and now it’s a top priority investment category.  Love or hate the move, when someone who could have been the next President decides instead to join us as a cleantech VC, you have to feel that’s a pretty visible indication of how the stature of the sector has grown.  And that’s in no small part due to the leadership role Al has already played in raising awareness of climate change and what can be done about it.  (I’ll admit to being a bit biased—way back in 1988 I was the only one stumping for Al in my local precinct for the Dem presidential nomination…)

Today’s news is also a great indication of all of the investor, government, entrepreneurial and corporate efforts that are now going into the invention of the clean energy economy.  At the local and regional level, green jobs growth and concerns over issues like water shortages and climate change are prompting a lot of cluster-building efforts and other incentives for cleantech market growth.  At the national level, lip-service or not, just about all political candidates are having to make climate change and cleantech a major part of their campaigning strategy.  It’s becoming clear that January 2009 will be a major turning point in terms of national energy policies.  Even the long-maligned idea of a carbon tax is starting to get some momentum behind it, and I thought I’d never live to see that day.

So while this particular news item won’t make much difference for any VC’s day-to-day activity, it’s a good chance to take a step back and assess all the exciting changes of the past couple of years.

More on the Kleiner/Generations/Gore media love-fest:

• PE Week Wire
• News.com
• NYT
• SF Chronicle
• Merc
• WaPost
• Earth2Tech
• Matt Marshall
• And for the full-on treatment it’s worth reading Fortune’s articles on the story itself, a profile of David Blood, and a slideshow of Kleiner’s greentech portfolio (although it’s interesting to note that Fortune includes Glori-Oil, which the KPCB site lists as “other”)

In much more pressing and potentially urgent news, however, is today’s revelation that threats of presidential veto and other horse-trading could mean that some of the most critically important pieces of the anticipated Energy Bill could be “taken off the table.”  Welcome to the team, Al, now get to work!

Finally, in deal news today, CTI is reporting that Fat Spaniel has taken in $3mm in bridge financing from existing investors, as they look to line up a $20mm Series B.