FinSoul: Cleantech venture capital had its second best year in 2009.

Jan. 4, 2010 - PRLog -- FinSoul believes that the latest available data indicates that even considering the global financial crisis and the sharp downturn in investment in the general economy, venture capital firms invested almost $5 billion into cleantech businesses during 2009.

The report by Greentech Media shows that global venture capital investment into cleantech businesses reached $4.85 billion during the last year, a 36% drop on the $7.6 billion invested in 2008, but 2009 still represented the 2nd best year on record for the sector, a significant jump on the $3.5 billion of 2007.

FinSoul also understands that the data indicates that the number of cleantech venture capital deals, in fact saw an increase last year from the 350 deals of 2008 to 356 in the face of the financial crisis. The firm said that the move towards a large number of smaller deals was underpinned by the growth in interest in early-stage companies after a period during which investors had flocked to larger, already established cleantech firms.

The new figures did however show that large scale deals were definitely not a thing of the past, pointing to the $300 million deal inked by Synthetic Genomic, as well as the $198 million raised by Solyndra, a leading solar energy firm, as examples of this.

FinSoul learned that, as expected, solar energy led the field as most popular with venture capitalists drawing 84 deals worth $1.4 billion, followed by biofuels which secured a $976 million.  

The report comes hot on the heals of the release of a survey of 200 cleantech investors by investment bank, Jefferies, which revealed growing confidence that this sector is set to recover strongly in 2010.

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FinSoul structures and guides greenhouse gas emission reduction projects from beginning to end, working with both project developers and buyers of emission reduction credits.