Michael Migendt

Emergence of Cleantech as an Investment Category - Public Discourse and Venture Capital Investment

In our paper we observe with an extensive database of press articles about venture capital the emergence and following evolution of the topic clean technology investing. We match our software-based analysis of the press discourse with investment data and observe high synchronicity of the developments of the two datasets. We demonstrate that historical textual information holds as a viable proxy for analyzing circumstances with a lack of rich data. An industry life cycle model can be applied to the development of this investment category. Additionally we develop an understanding of the role of public discourse in the venture capital industry and look at consequences of tone and sentiment in the media data.

Private Equity in Clean Technology: An Exploratory Study of the Finance-Innovation-Policy Nexus

The role of technological innovation in mitigating climate change has received growing interest in recent years. However, extant literature has neglected a more holistic view on equity financing and the indirect effects of innovation and financial policy on financing innovation through private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC). In this paper, we emphasize the importance of this understudied aspect through a comparative case study of private equity and venture capital for clean technologies in the United States and Germany. We find that systemic interdependencies between institutional investors, PE/ VC and policy makers influence the conditions for innovation – the “finance-innovation-policy nexus”. Adverse effects of policies affecting financial markets, in particular institutional investors, have to be taken into account to effectively mobilize private investments for (cleantech) innovation.

Development of Industries in the Cleantech Sector - A Case of the Solar and Fuel Cell Industries

This paper presents in a condensed view the role of finance, innovation, and policy for the development of cleantech industries: It explains the historical development of the solar energy and fuel cell industries and depicts the peculiarities of green growth. A quantitative content analysis of press articles from American newspapers is used to analyze the changing importance of different topics during the period from 1995 to 2013. An approach to compare the importance of the different actors, finance, innovation, and policy has been recognized as missing in the literature. This paper adds not only to the theoretical research gap, but it also a new methodological approach within industry development literature. Finance as a key barrier to green growth is shown to be of high importance even before investment readiness. Innovation themes are discovered to be of higher importance than entrepreneurial themes during the earlier phases of industry development. Additionally, the solar energy industry is under higher regulatory influence compared to the fuel cell industry.

Emergence of Cleantech as an Investment Category – Media Attention and Venture Capital Investment

This paper investigates the emergence of the category “clean technology investing” in the field of venture capital (VC). Building on industry evolution and life-cycle literature it extends the understanding of drivers for VC growth. It takes industry and public policy forces into account. The case of cleantech investing is examined using a multitude of datasets and methods including a quantitative and qualitative content analysis. A software-based analysis of press publications combined with investment data shows clean technology media and investment emergence patterns. These patterns follow evolutionary life-cycle patterns. The paper conjectures on factors that influence observed patterns in each stage.