Women In Cleantech and Sustainability – Nat Goldhaber presentation

Nat Goldhaber addresses Women in Cleantech and Sustainability on the importance of women in successful startup companies. WCS Talks 2015 – Nat Goldhaber, Claremont Creek Ventures Uploaded by Women In Cleantech and Sustainability on 2016-02-21.

Claremont Creek Ventures takes top spot from Upfront in CalPERS portfolio

This story just ran in Reuters PE HUB.

A big gain by Claremont Creek Ventures’ second fund propelled it to the top of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System Golden State Investment Partners’ venture portfolio, displacing Upfront Ventures.

Claremont Creek Ventures portfolio company Energy Cache featured in GigaOM Earth2Tech

March 25, 2012  source: GigaOM Earth2Tech Update: March 27, 2012 – see GigaOM’s followup article: The story of Energy Cache, a drop-dead simple energy idea by Katie Fehrenbacher from an extensive interview with the founder and President of Energy Cache, Aaron Fyke, giving the details of how the technology works, how the company came into being, where it’s headed and how Bill Gates and Bill Gross became involved. Energy Cache, one of Claremont Creek Ventures’ portfolio companies, was featured in GigaOM’s Earth2Tech blog this past Sunday. Energy Cache, an Idealab company, develops low-cost energy storage through a series of gravel lift arrays. The system […]

Venture Capital is the Essence of Everything Good in Capitalism

February 14, 2011  source: this article was a guest post at I was heartened this month to see that the Private Equity Growth Capital Council launched a multi-million-dollar education and public affairs campaign on the Internet highlighting the basics of private equity. Hopefully, this will address a general lack of understanding about private equity, which, among other things, is too often confused with venture capital. This misperception was in the spotlight last month, when Republican and Democratic attacks focused on Mitt Romney’s time as the head of private equity firm Bain Capital. The message was that Romney was a “vulture […]

Claremont Creek (and I) are recognized as tops in Cleantech investing

Although venture capitalists have taken a battering in the renewables sector, as seen in the sorry Solyndra saga, investors continue to see value in smart grid investments, biofuels and electric vehicles.

But the stakes are usually high, the capital costs expensive and the path to profit unclear in uncertain political and economic times in the US. But the gains for the US economy are clear.

You’d Better Shop Around: Doing Due Diligence on Your VC

August 2, 2011  source: this post appeared originally at Xconomy For a first-time entrepreneur, dealing with a venture capitalist can involve an equal mix of excitement and apprehension. If the VC has any sort of reputation or prominence, entrepreneurs are often grateful simply to be pitching their idea in the first place. Should discussions get far enough along that a term sheet is offered, a new entrepreneur is usually thrilled beyond words. Those certainly were my emotions back in my entrepreneurial youth, the first time I dealt with venture capitalists. It was one of the most exciting times of my […]

How to survive the next bubble

July 13, 2011  source: GigaOm Raise money when you can Who: Nat Goldhaber, General Partner Claremont Creek Ventures Bubble Cred: In 1994, Goldhaber founded an early web-advertising platform called CyberGold. In 1999, the company filed for an IPO and was valued at several hundred million dollars, or what we now call “ a rounding error,” says Goldhaber. Interviewed by Cortney Fielding Lessons Learned: Raise money when you can. If there is a bubble, why not take advantage of it before it bursts? While the lean startup movement is gaining momentum and many are touting the virtues of only taking what […]

BrightSource IPO Could Spark Clean-Tech ‘Gold Rush’

Nat Goldhaber, managing director of Claremont Creek Ventures in Oakland, said a monster showing by BrightSource could spark a “Google effect” that leaves investors as enthusiastic about pioneering energy firms as they have been about information technology. May 3, 2011  source: New York Times BrightSource Energy Inc.’s plan to go public this year could spur a wave of clean technology startups looking to follow suit if investors flock to the solar developer in large numbers, experts say. The Oakland-based company recently filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to start the initial public offering process, following the example of others […]

For VC’s, No More Chasing Magic Batteries

April 21, 2011  source: Gigaom When it comes to clean-energy investing 2.0, venture capitalists are beyond looking for the silver bullet — or the magic battery –- they spent the last decade hunting and hoping for. Today, VCs are more likely to invest their dollars in slightly less ambitious energy-efficiency projects, Paul Kedrosky, senior fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, told the audience at GigaOM’s Green:Net conference. Kedrosky sat down with a panel of VC heavy hitters for a discussion on what’s hot and what’s not in the second wave of clean-tech investing. And what’s hot, they all agreed […]

Robert Scoble video interview: Investing in early stage cleantech and healthcare

March 23, 2011 source: Building 43 Videos – Robert Scoble interview — “… Very little has changed since 1979-1980 in energy [management]…” Nat Goldhaber (1′ 30″ into video) Much of the technology-related startup news today is focused on companies in the social media or Internet application spaces. Today, however, we are meeting with Claremont Creek Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in, among others, early stage cleantech and healthcare companies. “One of the things that distinguishes us from a lot of other VCs that are investing in this area is that we are really very early stage,” explains Nat […]