GigaOM » Vinod Khosla

How energy data will impact the smart grid

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:40:19 +0000

The deployment of smart meters combined with the growth of cloud computing infrastructure has created opportunities to build business models around the volume of emerging energy data. Those who use data to solve customer problems and leverage decades of software development and advances in big data will attract investment dollars.

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13 battery startups to watch in 2013

Katie Fehrenbacher — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:45:14 +0000

Updated: Batteries are the quiet work horses of our gadgets, and our cell phones, and they’ll also one day remake our power grid and our vehicles. But battery innovation is difficult — it takes a long time to develop and commercialize new batteries, and it can also take a lot of money.

That’s why we wanted to take the opportunity to highlight some of the rare next-generation battery startups out there that are using nanotechnology, new printing technologies, high-powered computing, and other innovations to produce the future’s batteries. With a little luck, strong leadership, and maybe some government support, these battery startups could change the way the world stores energy. Also make sure to check out an advanced battery report (subscription required) recently published by our research service GigaOM Pro.

1). Ambri: Ambri is one of the most well known battery startups out there. Formerly called Liquid Metal Battery, the company was founded by MIT Professor Don Sadoway, who is probably the only battery startup founder ever to score an interview on The Colbert Report. It’s also got investors Bill Gates, Vinod Khosla, and oil giant Total. Ambri is developing a battery for the power grid using molten salt sandwiched between two layers of liquid metal. The battery is still at least a year and a half from commercialization.

2). Imprint Energy: Using zinc, instead of lithium, and screen printing technology, Imprint Energy has developed a battery that is ultra-thin, energy-dense, flexible, and low cost. Because the battery can be made thin and pliable, the company hopes to target companies making wearables. Imprint Energy is already making small volumes of its batteries for pilot customers, and plans to ramp up to commercial scale manufacturing in a couple years.

3). Alveo Energy: Half-year-old startup Alveo Energy is looking to develop and commercialize a battery made out of water, Prussian blue dye — which is used to color things like blue jeans, crayons and paint — iron and copper. The battery is meant to be ultra low cost and long lasting, and if successful, could help deliver breakthrough energy storage technology for the power grid. The research behind the battery was done by Stanford PhD student turned entrepreneur Colin Wessells, and Stanford Professor Professor Robert Huggins, and the company managed to snag a $4 million grant from the Department of Energy’s high risk early stage program called ARPA-E.

4). Pellion: Pellion went about finding the perfect battery chemistry in a totally disruptive way: the researchers created advanced algorithms and computer models that enabled them to test out 10,000 potential cathode materials to fit with its magnesium anode for its battery. Pellion co-founder, MIT Professor Gerbrand Ceder, also helped develop The Materials Genome Project at MIT, which is a program based on using computer modelling and virtual simulations to deliver innovation in materials. Pellion says its magnesium batteries could have very high energy density — higher than current lithium ion batteries. The startup is backed by the ARPA-E program as well as Khosla Ventures.

5). QuantumScape: QuantumScape is an early stage stealth battery startup that is truly a product of Silicon Valley. The company is commercializing technology from Stanford University, it was founded by Infinera co-founder and CEO Jagdeep Singh, and it’s backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Khosla Ventures. The company is trying to create a battery — called the all-electron battery — that has the density of fossil fuels. The technology being used is a new method for stacking trace amounts of materials together.

6). Envia: A year ago battery startup Envia unveiled that its lithium ion battery technology could deliver an electric car with a 300-mile range for a cost of around $25,000 to $30,000. Founded in 2007, Envia developed a low-cost cathode and then paired that with a silicon carbon anode, and a high-voltage electroloyte. The company is backed by General Motors, Japanese giant Asahi Kasei, Pangaea Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and the DOE’s ARPA-E program.

7). GELI: Startup GELI isn’t making new types of batteries, but it’s developing an operating system and software for grid batteries. Companies, building owners and utilities can buy GELI-enabled batteries and use the batteries for services like providing energy storage for solar systems, or for storing and discharging energy when the demand for energy becomes out of balance with supply.

8). Sila Nanotechnologies: Sila Nanotechnologies was founded in 2011 by Valley entrepreneurs working with the Georgia Institute of Technology. The company is building a lighter lithium ion battery that has double the capacity of current lithium ion batteries. The company received a $1.73 million grant from the DOE.

9). Boulder Ionics: Boulder Ionics is working on breakthroughs for the electrolyte part of the battery, which is the guts of the battery, where the ions flow across between the anode and the cathode. The company is developing an electrolyte made of ionic liquids that can function at high temperatures and voltages and is lower cost to make than the more standard way to make ionic liquids.

10). Prieto Battery: The brainchild of Colorado State chemistry professor Amy Prieto, Prieto Battery is making a lithium ion battery that it says can charge in five minutes and last for five times longer than the standard lithium ion batteries. The company is leveraging nanotechnology to develop tiny copper nanowires that make up the anode of the battery, and the electrolyte is made of a solid polymer.

11). Sakti3: Sakti3 is a startup in Michigan that is building a lithium ion battery that is entirely solid state, and has a high energy density. Making it from solid polymers means it won’t have those flammable liquids and could be a lot safer for electric cars. The company is backed by Khosla Ventures, GM Ventures and Itochu.

12). Xilectric: Xilectric is re-making the “Edison Battery,” which traditionally has been a rechargeable nickel iron battery. But Xilectric is making it out of aluminum and magnesium, which it says will make it more low cost and with higher performance. The company was awarded a $1.73 million grant from the DOE.

13). Amprius: Based on research from Stanford’s Yi Cui, Amprius is working on lithium ion batteries that use a nanostructured silicon material for the anode. The nanostructured material could shrink the anode fourfold and allow a fourfold increase in energy density. The company has raised at least $25 million from Trident Capital, VantagePoint Venture Partners, IPV Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Eric Schmidt.

Updated: This article was updated on January 14th at 10:30AM to correct the name of the show that Ambri’s founder did an interview on, from The Daily Show to The Colbert Report.

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Chrysalix VCs: Well, we’re making money in cleantech

Katie Fehrenbacher — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 13:00:33 +0000

Not all venture capitalists lost their shirts in the cleantech investing cycle over the past five to six years. Canadian venture capital firm Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital actually put out a press release on Monday noting that it’s latest early stage cleantech fund — which it closed four years ago and which is chock full of young cleantech startups — has seen its collective value go up by 75 percent.

VCs at firms like Sequoia Capital or Andreessen Horowitz might scoff at the call for attention to a positive fund value, but in the cleantech ecosystem a significant positive growth in value is pretty rare. In fact, I’ve heard discussions of cleantech portfolios being waaay, way (way) down in valuation for many VCs’ funds.

Chrysalix put money into 18 follow-on rounds and one new investment in 2012, and the company’s overall portfolio includes startups like nuclear company General Fusion, micro fuel cell maker Angstrom Power, electric scooter company Brammo, solar steam generator maker GlassPoint, and GaN Systems, which makes power conversion chips. Chrysalix’s new investment in 2012 was Axine Water Technologies, which makes clean water technology.

Now that some of the generalist VCs are exiting making cleantech investments, investors that are sticking to their green guns are coming out of the woodwork to throw down their gauntlets. Vinod Khosla says his cleantech portfolio is doing just fine, thank you very much, and he will continue to invest in the space. Others like DBL Investors, which backed both Tesla and SolarCity — two of the most successful cleantech IPOs — clearly have done well (see my profile The Most Successful and Positive Greentech VC You Haven’t Heard of).

Still others that are investing in CleanWeb, or clean IT, continue to be excited about investing in companies that are using IT to manage resources, like energy, food and water. As Mitch Lowe of Greenstart, a digital green accelerator, said on a panel I moderated last month: “Cleantech is dead, like the Internet was dead in 2000.”

Images of Bridgelux and Brammo technologies. Courtesy of Bridgelux and GigaOM.

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Cleantech and investment in 2013

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:05:16 +0000

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EcoMotors raises $32.5M from Khosla, Bill Gates, Braemar

Katie Fehrenbacher — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:27:47 +0000

EcoMotors, a startup building an efficient engine, has raised a $32.5 million Series C round led by Braemar Energy Ventures, and including previous investors Khosla Ventures and Bill Gates. The four-year-old company’s engine design includes stackable modules, one of which can be shut off when it isn’t needed, and the startup has said its engine could deliver a 100 MPG for highway driving in a 5-passenger car.

EcoMotors said this morning that the funding will help it create diesel engines with customers, including Navistar and Zhongding Holding Group. The company will also use the funds to make a gas-version, in addition to its diesel-version. Eventually EcoMotors will also develop a compressed natural gas version, too.

In the emerging world of electric cars, and biofuels, EcoMotors is an example of a startup that is looking to remake the traditional transportation world of the internal combustion engine. Other companies building new technology for the internal combustion engine include Grail Engine Technologies, and its efficient two-stroke engine, Pinnacle Engines, which makes a four-stroke engine (video here), Achates Power, which is building a closed piston, 2-stroke engine, and Transonic Combustion, which is creating what’s called a “supercritical fuel injection system” for internal combustion engines that minimizes heat waste.

More efficient traditional engines could be a more low cost way to reduce carbon emissions from cars, before electric vehicles develop into any kind of market. Auto companies will also be looking for more efficient traditional technologies, because fuel standards in the U.S. are set to rise from 27 miles per gallon today to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, thanks to the Obama administration’s plan.

EcoMotors has also been targeting applications for the developing world, where car owners with less disposable income would be more concerned about using less diesel and gas and having a more efficient engine.

Moving from the prototype and development stage into mass commercialization and partnering with big auto makers will be the difficult hurdle for these startups. Auto makers move notoriously slowly (as slow as utilities and telcos) and won’t easily bet on risky startups.

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Khosla joins Bill Gates & Total to back Liquid Metal Battery

Katie Fehrenbacher — Wed, 23 May 2012 20:33:37 +0000

Liquid Metal Battery, a startup developing a battery for the power grid that already counted Bill Gates and oil giant Total as an investor, has now brought on another high profile backer: Khosla Ventures. The startup, which is the brainchild of MIT Professor Donald Sadoway and is based in Cambridge, plans to announce on Thursday that it has raised a Series B round of $15 million led by Khosla Ventures.

Liquid Metal Battery is developing a battery for the power grid using molten salt sandwiched between two layers of liquid metal. The battery is still at least two years from commercialization, and the team has built a 16-inch prototype, though they might later scale that up to 36 inches. The company is betting that a battery based on liquid metal electrodes will be stable, scalable, and low cost enough that it could revolutionize grid storage.

Right now the grid has very little energy storage and power plants are basically producing the exact amount of energy that buildings and systems are consuming in real time. That makes the grid inefficient and also costly, and in addition the lack of energy storage is a barrier when it comes to adding less reliable clean power sources like wind and solar (the sun only shines and the wind only blows at certain times).

Gates originally learned about Liquid Metal Battery when he took Sadoway’s class via MIT’s online open-course program. Gates took Sadoway’s 34-lecture series on batteries and contacted Sadoway by email to meet with him and learn more. Gates is also a limited partner in Khosla Venture’s funds. In addition to the group of investors, the liquid metal battery project received a $6.9 million grant from the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E program.

The bulk of the development work left to do at Liquid Metal Battery will be focused on getting the cost of the battery down and figuring out the optimal size and shape. The company will also likely need more money down the road when it wants to start commercially producing the battery.

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Super VC Mike Moritz diagnosed with rare medical condition, steps back

Om Malik — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:45:19 +0000

Mike Moritz, arguably one of the few super VCs, has been diagnosed with a rare, incurable medical condition and has decided to take a step back from active daily duties at Sequoia Capital. He still intends to continue making investments and also work with younger partners at the firm.

Moritz is part of a rare breed of uber-VCs who have had multiple billion dollar exits. Moritz, John Doerr, Vinod Khosla, Jim Breyer and Fred Wilson belong to this super club. Moritz, who spent early part of his life as a journalist and wrote for Time magazine, is well known for his investments in Google, Yahoo and PayPal. Moritz spoke at our RoadMap conference last November and is a big champion of finding investment opportunities in India, China and other parts of the world. Moritz also wrote the seminal Apple book, The Little Kingdom.

On a more personal note, I have gotten to know Mike over the years and I am stunned by this development. He informed the firm’s limited partners in a note earlier today. This is the text of the email that was sent out.

We have always tried to be straightforward with you and, in that spirt, I need to share something. Unfortunately, I have been diagnosed with a rare medical condition which can be managed but is incurable.

I’ve been told that in the next five to ten years the quality of my life is quite likely to decline. Right now I feel fitter than ever and I hope that I’ll be one of the lucky ones who can live a full life and defy the statisticians. But there is no way of predicting this with certainty and thus for me, life has assumed a different meaning and I am making some adjustments.

I am going to extract myself from the daily management of Sequoia Capital, a task that has consumed a large part of my time for the past sixteen years. I will become Chairman of Sequoia Capital and will be deeply involved with nurturing the fresh investments, ideas and relationships that can be of significant long-term benefit for all of us. I will also work very closely with some of our younger and newer members, will continue my role as Managing Member of existing funds and maintain all my current company responsibilities. I will use twelve to fourteen weeks – sprinkled throughout the course of each year – for various pursuits, diversions and trivial indulgences.

Nothing about this should cause much of a change because everything that has been achieved at Sequoia Capital has resulted from the teamwork and contribution of many people. Our overall business is in the best shape it has ever been and we are better positioned than at any time in our forty year history. Doug Leone will assume full responsibility for coordinating the business we have gradually developed over the past couple of decades and almost everything else remains entirely the same.

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Bill Gates: We need crazy energy entrepreneurs

Katie Fehrenbacher — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:41:58 +0000

We need “energy miracles,” or break through innovation, in at least five areas, and in each of these areas “we need at least two hundred crazy people who think their idea alone can solve this,” said Bill Gates at the Wall Street Journal’s Eco:nomics conference on Thursday night. In a 30-minute interview on the second night of the three day event, Gates discussed innovation in carbon capture, nuclear, biofuels, and clean power like solar and wind, and provided his thoughts on carbon taxes, politics and government funding.

Gates said that it is particularly important to make sure that the “rewards are there,” for these crazy energy entrepreneurs, and “that is very unclear right now,” for grid-related generation technologies. You have to think why don’t we have more people doing things like that — what is holding these people back? said Gates.

Gates himself has invested in a variety of energy-related startups, including nuclear company TerraPower, and battery company Liquid Metal Battery. In his talk he also said he is backing a startup doing gravity energy storage, which he referred to as “gravel on ski lifts.” He’s also a limited partner in Khosla Ventures, Vinod Khosla’s fund, and Gates jokingly referred to Khosla as “the pay master of crazy people — some of whom we’ll declare sane,” in the future. That’s what venture capital is all about, said Gates.

Gates also had a word of encouragement for the energy entrepreneurs:

“I would encourage people who work in this area that the importance of this is right at the top.” The reason I spend time on it is because I think it is so critical to the environmental challenge and for helping the poorest. Cheap energy is like a vaccine.

While Gates has long said that the U.S. government needs to at least double its funding of energy research, he is heartened that the U.S. owns the majority share of the world’s energy startup portfolio companies, he said. But to help these entrepreneurs out we need to help make it possible for them to get capital, to scale up, to have access to China, and we need to create a framework that is very favorable to them, said Gates.

This not going to be as easy as the IT revolution, said Gates, energy miracles are fundamental breakthroughs in science and engineering.

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Alberta, Khosla loan biofuel company KiOR $75M

Katie Fehrenbacher — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:39:32 +0000

Next-gen biofuel company KiOR has long planned to raise more money to get its first commercial-scale biofuel facilities off the ground. On Friday morning the company filed (and also announced) a new $75 million loan from existing investors Alberta Investment Management, a fund that manages billions on behalf of the province of Alberta, Canada, and Khosla Ventures, the venture firm that was an investor early on and now has voting and investment control over more than 60 percent of the outstanding shares of Class A common stock.

All the terms of the loan and repayment details are in the filing (if you are interested). Alberta Investment Management is also a limited partner in Khosla Ventures.

KiOR started building the initial stage of its commercial production facility in Columbus, Miss., in the first quarter of 2011, and the company plans to finish the facility by the first half of 2012. According to KiOR’s latest quarterly statement, that first project required another $114 million. KiOR plans to start building its larger standard commercial production facilities in the second half of 2012, in Newton, Miss., and this size of facility is expected to cost around $350 million.

According to the filing the Alberta group is loaning KiOR $50 million and Khosla Ventures is loaning KiOR $25 million. A portion of the loan will go to paying $6.72 million of existing debt.

KiOR has yet to generate any revenues, has accumulated a deficit of $115.4 million since inception, and expects to incur operating losses through at least 2013. The company won’t start generating revenues until at least the second half of 2012, assuming it finishes building its first initial-scale facility on time.

If KiOR can make it past this “valley of death” — where precommercial technologies move into commercial technologies — it could one day be a game-changer in the oil industry. KiOR has developed a technology that allows it to convert biomass into a bio substitute for crude oil.

Check out my extensive piece on KiOR I published a couple of weeks ago: The perils of cleantech investing: KiOR and the long-term, high-risk view. KiOR is trading around $12.60 in morning trading, slightly down on Friday, but up since the beginning of the year.

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India’s Reliance backs nuclear startup TerraPower

Katie Fehrenbacher — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:01:17 +0000

Nuclear startup TerraPower, which is backed by Bill Gates, now has a massive Indian conglomerate on its side: Reliance Industries. According to Business Week, Reliance Industries, which owns oil, telecom and retail businesses, has invested a minority stake in TerraPower through one of its energy units.

Reliance is run by billionaire Chairman Mukesh Ambani (I drove by his billion-dollar house in Mumbai last week) and the company is one of the largest in India.

TerraPower has managed to start building relationships with companies globally, including with the governments of China, India and Russia, and Japanese giant Toshiba. If you have Bill Gates as one of your liaisons, doors tend to open. TerraPower’s backers told me the company will likely commercialize its technology first outside of the U.S.

TerraPower’s other backers include Khosla Ventures — Vinod Khosla’s venture fund — Charles River Ventures, Gates himself and the investors at Intellectual Ventures, which is an invention think tank founded by former Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Nathan Myhrvold (related: “From Microsoft to nuclear, 10 questions for Nathan Myhrvold”).

TerraPower is actually a spin-off from Myhrvold’s incubator, and the company is building nuclear traveling wave reactor technology, which is a relatively new type of small nuclear reactor design that can use the waste byproduct of the enrichment process, or waste uranium, for fuel. Traveling wave nuclear reactors have been under development since the 1990s, but TerraPower is one of the first companies to develop a practical design for the technology. (See “6 nuclear power startups to watch” and “Nuclear power by the numbers.”)

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