The start-up Solyndra (Solyndra) from California was established in 2005. The start-up developed solar panels in a cylindrical shape for use on roofs, which was supposed to make more efficient use of the area and produce more electricity. Based on this technology, Solyndra received a guarantee from the US government for a loan of over half a billion dollars, in addition to millions of dollars in private investment.
But two years after the huge loan, in 2011, Solyndra went bankrupt, laying off 1,100 workers. The company has already reported revenues of $140 million a year, but has not yet been able to produce its solar panels on a large scale and at a competitive price against panel manufacturers in China. In addition, a drop in oil and natural gas prices hurt the popularity of solar energy and the 2008 crisis made it difficult to raise money.
The closing of Solyndra also marked the collapse of the cleantech sector – clean energy technology – when the money that flowed from venture capital funds to companies in this field, such as for example battery development companies, stopped almost completely for years. The venture capital funds that entered the field with enthusiasm had to write off billions of dollars worth of investments in companies that closed.
However, since 2018, a new round of investments in environmental start-ups has been launched. In order not to remember the failures of the past, the field was rebranded and instead of cleantech – it is now called climatetech (climate technology). As you can read below, the Israeli start-ups involved in climatetech are also flourishing in the last year.
Will Cleantech version 2.0 be more successful than the original version? Experts point out that start-ups in the field of climate tech can be measured more easily through their contribution to carbon reduction, compared to the cleantech version that was more abstract and talked about contributing to the prevention of damage to the environment, a concept that is more difficult to quantify. Perhaps even more importantly: the awareness today of governments, companies and consumers of the need for a solution to the climate crisis is much higher than a decade ago.
The startups themselves also learned the lessons of the past and built more stable business models than before. Still, nothing is guaranteed and the start-ups in the climetech field are still ones that involve hardware and deep-tech technologies, so the risk in them is high and the returns are slow.
Summary of the week with eight interesting things we wrote about.
To receive the summary of the week in high-tech by email: sign up Here
A new report on the climatetech field in Israel found a sharp increase in the rate of start-ups in the climate field, and one out of seven is already engaged in the industry. in the foundation Firstime It is estimated that by the end of the decade more than half of the venture capital will go to climate technologies: “the opportunities are greater than gaming or cyber”
- Is Compass high-tech?
Compass, the largest real estate platform in the US founded by Uri Alon, entered into a cash flow crisis and announced additional layoffs of hundreds of employees. Similar to other real estate companies that boasted the title of “high-tech company”, it did not know how to find a way to solve problems in the market or present profitability to investors
- Between war in Ukraine and mass commissions
In recent years the applications Get and Yango have become synonymous with the word “taxi”. But then both decided to increase the fees and a driver revolt started against taxi apps, which also fell into crisis following the war in Ukraine. Now, with the comeback of Uber to Israel, is there a chance that competition in the taxi market will reopen?
- It all started with duplicate contacts
In the statement of defense submitted by the business intelligence start-up Lusha to the claim of millions against it and its founders, the company rejects the claim that it used trade secrets of a previous company of one of the founders. Instead, Lusha tells an equally interesting story about its founding – a story that begins with an application to eliminate duplicates in a contact list on a smartphone
- Adobe investors are voting with their feet
Last week, Adobe announced a huge $20 billion purchase of the start-up Pigma. The fact that the design giant was forced to buy a smaller competitor at twice its last value signaled to the market that Adobe’s competitive advantage was being undermined, which sent the stock down to its worst week in 20 years
- When Starboard arrived at Wicks
The activist investment fund, which revealed last week that it had reached a holding of 9% of the Israeli company’s shares, estimates that it purchased the Wix shares at undervalued prices. Now the fund may be taking active steps that, judging by its previous moves, may take Wix to different places
- Technological incubator in sheltered housing
As the aging population threatens the economies of the developed world, technologies to streamline and improve the treatment of the population are becoming a hot market. In Israel, geriatric institutions are already becoming centers of innovation, and their managers believe that not only adults will benefit from the new developments. “Geriatrics is leading the health revolution, because it is the money pump”
- The naughty brother of the Nobel
The Ig-Nobel Prize, which is branded as the “naughty little brother” of the Nobel Prizes, was awarded this year for the 32nd time for “research that makes you laugh and then think”. These are the ten studies that won this year’s prize