Google has taken such an enthusiastic role in investing and promoting clean energy that the search engine giant became the second most active cleantech venture investor for the third quarter, according to a report from the Cleantech Group. That’s in terms of number of deals and Google invested in 5 startups for the period, including lithium ion battery startup Actacell, geothermal company AltaRock Energy, electric vehicle makers Aptera Motors, high-altitude wind developer Makani Power, and geothermal company Potter Drilling. Google had more deals than well-known cleantech investors Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Ventures for the quarter.
Though we’re pretty sure Google is nowhere near the top when it comes to the actual dollar amounts spent on cleantech investing. Google only invested $2.75 million into its green vehicle startups, $10.25 million into its two geothermal technologies, and $5 million for the latest round into Makani (plus a previous $10 million in 2006). That’s not much compared to some of the rounds raised last quarter like the $200 million raised by solar startup SoloPower.
Still Google is being very aggressive in terms of investing in clean power generation and electric vehicles, that are generally outside of the company’s expertise. Google has also previously made several bets on solar, including eSolar, and BrightSource.
And even though we applaud Google’s efforts, we’re still waiting for the company to make a bigger push into managing energy data. Given Google has built its business off of organizing the world’s information, we’re thinking it would have a lot to offer networking and communication technology that is trying to utilize energy data. We know Google and GE have that smart grid partnership, but we haven’t seen much yet.
