兩年前，我投身風(fēng)險投資行業(yè)，重點(diǎn)關(guān)注清潔技術(shù)類(lèi)初創(chuàng )公司。這就像是通過(guò)觀(guān)看八年級學(xué)生（譯注——相當于中國的初二學(xué)生）打籃球來(lái)發(fā)掘未來(lái)的NBA球員：他們還需要很多年的時(shí)間來(lái)成長(cháng)，一旦他們真的成長(cháng)起來(lái)，情況就會(huì )大不一樣。選擇的關(guān)鍵之處在于出色的模式識別——早在成功到來(lái)之前就找到相應的征兆。
清潔技術(shù)風(fēng)險投資領(lǐng)域里的同行大多來(lái)自于其他領(lǐng)域，通常是半導體或通信行業(yè)，他們在模式識別方面的偏好也帶著(zhù)這些行業(yè)的烙印。我不禁想問(wèn)：“要是大家的偏好都錯了，該如何是好？”要是我們在選拔苗子的時(shí)后看走了眼，該怎么辦？
我曾從事于技術(shù)分析工作，因此我希望找到一種基于事實(shí)的方法來(lái)找到這個(gè)問(wèn)題的答案。于是，我選擇了一批成功的、獲得風(fēng)險投資的初創(chuàng )公司，試圖找出他們的共同點(diǎn)。我所選擇的初創(chuàng )公司：
已經(jīng)取得了明顯的成功。我將“成功”定義為在大型股票交易所上市。我知道，這個(gè)標準遠遠稱(chēng)不上完美，但至少是清晰明確的。
在2000年之后上市。這是為了把那些在1998-99年互聯(lián)網(wǎng)泡沫時(shí)期搭便車(chē)上市的能源公司排除在外。
得到了風(fēng)險投資機構的支持。請注意，絕大多數的清潔技術(shù)上市公司實(shí)際上都沒(méi)有得到風(fēng)險投資。
到目前為止，我選擇了18家公司作為樣本：
I entered the venture capital business two years ago, focusing on cleantech start-ups. It's kind of like picking a future NBA draft by watching eighth graders play basketball: There are many years worth of development to go, and the subjects will look a lot different once they're all grown up. The key is excellent pattern recognition – identifying the antecedents of success long before it happens.
Most of my fellow cleantech VCs came to this field from some other domain – often semiconductors or telecom – and brought their pattern recognition biases along with them. The question I found myself asking was "What if everyone's biases are wrong?" What if we're picking the wrong eighth graders?
Coming from a career in the tech analyst business, I wanted to find a fact-based way to answer the question, so I assembled a set of successful VC-backed start-ups and looked for what they had in common. I picked companies that:
Had achieved unambiguous success, which I defined as an IPO on a major exchange. That's far from a perfect criterion, I know, but at least it's clear-cut.
Went public after 2000, to rule out the boomlet of '98-'99 energy IPOs (when the Internet bubble's rising tide lifted all boats).
Were backed by institutional VC. Note that the majority of public cleantech companies have, in fact, not been venture-funded.
As of today, this sample consists of 18 companies:
（毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)，有些數據存在錯誤，請讀者在評論中加以指正，我會(huì )統一進(jìn)行修正。事先聲明，我把每家公司的前身也考慮在內，因此第一太陽(yáng)能公司的成立時(shí)間有所提前。）
上面這份名單能告訴我們什么？平均來(lái)看，這些清潔技術(shù)初創(chuàng )公司的好苗子：
通過(guò)發(fā)行股票籌集了1.22億美元。其中不包括補貼和債務(wù)。融資規模相差很大，但如果把Q-Cells公司和REC公司作為特例排除在外，它們的融資規模都不低于3,000萬(wàn)美元。如果某份新的商業(yè)計劃提出了比這個(gè)數字更低的生命周期資金需求，必須有無(wú)懈可擊的理由來(lái)加以證明。
上市時(shí)估值達到9億美元。估值差別也很大。假如投資者在這些公司上市時(shí)持有80%的股份，這些股份將帶來(lái)5.9倍的投資回報率。
從成立到上市需要8.3年。清潔技術(shù)公司從成立到上市大概需要10年時(shí)間。但請注意，那些在2010年后上市的公司所需時(shí)間較短，平均為6.7年。這類(lèi)初創(chuàng )公司在成立時(shí)或成立后不久就獲得了風(fēng)險投資；相比之下，前者常常在自力更生了數年之后方才得到風(fēng)險投資。
在1/50的成功率中幸存下來(lái)。這18家公司在1995年至2007年間首次獲得風(fēng)險投資。風(fēng)險投資行業(yè)追蹤機構風(fēng)險資源（VentureSource）的資料顯示，清潔技術(shù)行業(yè)在此期間共進(jìn)行了986次種子融資或首輪融資。毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)，今后將有更多的初創(chuàng )公司獲得成功，尤其是最近幾年獲得了風(fēng)險投資的初創(chuàng )公司。但到目前為止，得到風(fēng)險投資支持的初創(chuàng )公司成功率僅為18/986，也就是1.8%。
如果將某些財務(wù)標準考慮在內，我們可以了解到更多情況。平均來(lái)看，這些獲得成功的清潔技術(shù)公司：
What can we learn from this? The average NBA draft pick of cleantech:
Raised $122 million in equity financing, which excludes grants and debt. The distribution is pretty broad, but I'd note that if you remove Q-Cells and REC as special cases, the floor is ~ $30MM. If a new business plan poses a lower lifetime cash requirement, there should be an airtight argument to justify that claim.
Went public at a ~ $900 million valuation, also with a broad distribution. If you assumed that investors owned, say, 80% of these companies at the IPO, the lot would have delivered a 5.9x return on capital invested.
Took 8.3 years from founding to IPO. If you're signing up to build a cleantech winner, reserve a decade. Note, however, that this elapsed time has shortened for companies that have gone public since 2010, where it averages 6.7 years. Start-ups in this later group received venture financing either right at their founding or soon after it, in contrast to earlier companies which often bootstrapped themselves for years before taking venture capital.
Survived a 1-in-50 success rate. These 18 companies received their first venture investment between 1995 and 2007. A quick VentureSource search indicates 986 seed/Series A rounds done in cleantech during that period. While there are doubtless further successes to come, particularly from start-ups funded in the later years, the yield so far is 18 / 986 or a 1.8% of start-ups funded.
If we include some financial metrics, we learn a bit more. The average cleantech winner also:
上市前一年的營(yíng)收為7,200萬(wàn)美元。如果把SemiLEDs公司和Gevo公司排除在外，那么2007年后上市的公司，其上市前一年的營(yíng)收最低為3,000萬(wàn)美元左右。這導致上市時(shí)的股價(jià)營(yíng)收比處于兩位數水平，超過(guò)了同類(lèi)企業(yè)（比如，A123系統公司雖然兩年來(lái)處境艱難，但其市銷(xiāo)率仍然達到4倍；而電池生產(chǎn)商Exide公司和Enersys公司則遠遠低于1倍）。在估值方面，獲得成功的清潔技術(shù)初創(chuàng )公司更像是高速發(fā)展的技術(shù)公司，而非他們現在的同行，后者尚未宣布其IPO估值。
上市時(shí)未實(shí)現盈利。在這18家公司中，只有4家公司在提交上市申請的前一財年實(shí)現了營(yíng)業(yè)利潤。這4家公司是Q-Cells，REC，Solarfun和Yingli，都屬于太陽(yáng)能企業(yè)。這種情況在上市當年也沒(méi)有發(fā)生變化，大多數公司的虧損沒(méi)有縮小反而擴大了。
以上的分析告訴我們未來(lái)的NBA球員應該是什么樣子，但絲毫不能告訴我們他們還是八年級學(xué)生的時(shí)候是什么樣子。要想了解這方面的情況，我們必須做一些基礎研究。于是，我盡可能多地與那些熟知這18家公司最初階段情況的人進(jìn)行交流。我問(wèn)了他們一個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單的問(wèn)題：“在進(jìn)行種子融資或首輪融資時(shí)，你如何評價(jià)這家公司的技術(shù)、市場(chǎng)和團隊，是出色、普通還是糟糕？”
對于每家初創(chuàng )公司，我都努力做到與至少一位參與了種子融資或首輪融資交易的投資者，以及至少一位見(jiàn)證了該交易及后續發(fā)展的投資者進(jìn)行交流。但對于許多公司，我都無(wú)法做到這一點(diǎn)。因此，請容許我強調一下，以下分析存在很大的主觀(guān)性。我的分析結果是：
Went public on $72 million in revenue the prior year. With a couple of outliers (SemiLEDs and Gevo), the revenue floor for an IPO has been around $30 million since 2007. This has led to price-to-revenue valuations at IPO in the double digits, transcending their category comparables (for example, A123Systems is still at 4x P/S today despite two tough years, while incumbent battery-makers Exide and Enersys sit well under 1x). Winning cleantech start-ups get valued like high-growth tech companies, not like their incumbent peers, so the latter haven't informed IPO valuations.
Was unprofitable at IPO. Only four out of 18 companies – Q-Cells, REC, Solarfun, and Yingli, all in solar – showed an operating profit in the fiscal year before they filed. That situation remained unchanged in the year of the IPO itself, where most companies' losses widened rather than narrowed.
This analysis tells us what the NBA draft looked like, but it doesn't say anything about the eighth graders. To learn about them, we need to do some primary research. So I talked to as many people as I could who were familiar with these 18 companies at their earliest stages, and asked them a simple question: "At the time of the seed/Series A fundraise, how would you have rated [company X] on its technology, its market, and its team – great, middling, or unfavorable?"
For each start-up, I strove to speak with at least one investor who did the seed/Series A deal as well as at least one who saw it and passed; however, for many companies I couldn't pull this off – so let me emphasize that there's a heaping helping of subjectivity here. With that caveat in place, here were my results:
技術(shù)與成功無(wú)關(guān)。在進(jìn)行早期融資時(shí)，這些公司中只有約1/3是真正的技術(shù)領(lǐng)袖，擁有強大的差異化技術(shù)（想想1994年的Evergreen太陽(yáng)能公司）。如果在做選擇時(shí)只看技術(shù)，那么這些公司中的大多數都會(huì )被排除在外。
市場(chǎng)大小與成功無(wú)關(guān)。在這18家公司中，有8家公司在成立初期時(shí)面向的市場(chǎng)規模狹小，缺乏吸引力。2003年，EnerNOC公司和Comverge公司成立時(shí)，市場(chǎng)反應并不熱烈；2002年，特斯拉公司（Tesla）成立時(shí)，電動(dòng)汽車(chē)只會(huì )讓人想起EV-1的失??；在第一太陽(yáng)能公司（First Solar）的前身Glasstech公司成立兩年之后，里根總統撤走了白宮的太陽(yáng)能面板。另有6家公司面向的是普通規模的市場(chǎng)，雖然絕對數量不小，但具有某些致命的特性，比如行業(yè)利潤較低、起伏較大（化學(xué)品，燃料），或者面臨來(lái)自中國的競爭激烈（電池，LED）等等。在大多數情況下，市場(chǎng)從不受歡迎到受歡迎的巨大轉變是受到了法規的推動(dòng)（比如針對太陽(yáng)能的保護性電價(jià)，旨在刺激市場(chǎng)需求響應的預約容量市場(chǎng)，以及針對生物燃料的可再生燃料標準的補貼等）。
團隊最重要。優(yōu)秀的團隊是這些公司將會(huì )取得成功的最重要征兆。這些公司中的大多數企業(yè)從一開(kāi)始就擁有這種優(yōu)勢（從我的訪(fǎng)談來(lái)看，在這18家公司中，只有1家公司遭遇了“我們會(huì )投資，但前提是必須換掉CEO”的情況）。我觀(guān)察到的最重要現象就是，在大多數時(shí)候，創(chuàng )始人CEO就是那位在幾年后敲響股票交易所鐘聲的人。在這18家公司中，有11家公司從未換過(guò)CEO，有2家公司在開(kāi)始時(shí)并沒(méi)有CEO，而是后來(lái)增補的（這兩家公司的創(chuàng )始人一直留守），只有5家公司在中途換過(guò)領(lǐng)導。我常常聽(tīng)能源風(fēng)險投資領(lǐng)域里的同行說(shuō)，這個(gè)行業(yè)缺乏管理人才，因此換CEO是理所當然的事。但事實(shí)并不支持這種觀(guān)點(diǎn)。
那么，眼下有哪些清潔技術(shù)初創(chuàng )公司能在8年后獲得成功？面對這個(gè)艱巨的預測任務(wù)，我會(huì )著(zhù)眼于何處呢？
我看重的是一支優(yōu)秀的團隊——他們必須不懼艱難險阻，并且用行動(dòng)而不是用語(yǔ)言來(lái)說(shuō)明，他們將如何按照自己的意愿來(lái)塑造這個(gè)世界。當然，隨著(zhù)時(shí)間的推移，還需要其他的因素才能獲得成功，對此我表示認同。但此刻站在我眼前的人必須首先令我相信，他們能夠在目前的職位上創(chuàng )造出豐碩的成果。我不在乎他們現在所面對的市場(chǎng)有多大，但他們必須使我相信，未來(lái)將出現某些變化，可以使市場(chǎng)在投資期內變得更有吸引力（這種變化的推動(dòng)力或許來(lái)自于法規方面）。
最后，無(wú)論技術(shù)是多么地令人叫絕，我都不會(huì )在人的問(wèn)題上妥協(xié)（但反過(guò)來(lái)我可能會(huì )）。
以上只是我的個(gè)人看法。我清楚地知道，本文的分析存在許多錯漏之處，但如果你認同以上的任何結論，那么你會(huì )由此而斷定，清潔技術(shù)投資者最應該做的事情就是吸引最聰明的人才，投身這個(gè)領(lǐng)域。這也應該是清潔技術(shù)初創(chuàng )公司在創(chuàng )新和合作方面最應該關(guān)注的重點(diǎn)。
Matthew Nordan是文羅克公司（Venrock）能源領(lǐng)域的風(fēng)險投資家。Nordan曾與他人共同創(chuàng )建并領(lǐng)導了能源技術(shù)分析機構盧克斯研究公司（Lux Research），并在弗瑞斯特研究公司（Forrester）從事技術(shù)未來(lái)走勢的預測工作。更多內容請查看mnordan.com。
譯者：千牛絮
Technology doesn't correlate with success. At the timing of early-stage financing, only about one-third of these companies were real technology leaders with strong, differentiated IP (think Evergreen Solar in 1994). If you made picks based on technology alone, you'd have ruled out most of these companies.
Market attractiveness was anti-correlated. Eight of these 18 firms faced unattractively small markets early on: Demand response was hardly a hot category when EnerNOC and Comverge formed in 2003, electric vehicles evoked little more than the EV-1's failure at Tesla's 2002 founding, and Reagan took the solar panels off the White House two years after First Solar's predecessor Glasstech started up. Another six firms faced middling markets that were large in absolute terms but exhibited some deal-killing attribute, like low/volatile category margins (chemicals, fuels) or ruthless Chinese competition (batteries, LEDs). In most cases, the bit-flip from an unattractive market to an attractive one was driven by regulation (feed-in tariffs for solar, forward capacity markets etc. for demand response, and subsidies like the Renewable Fuels Standard for biofuels).
Team matters most. The best predictor of success for this group was a killer team, present from the outset in a majority of these companies. (From my interviews, only one of the 18 was a "we'll fund if the CEO gets replaced" situation.) The most important observation for me is that, most of the time, the founding CEO was the same one who rang the stock exchange bell years later: Eleven out of 18 never changed CEOs, two started life without any CEO and added one along the way (in both cases the founders stayed on), and only five changed leadership midstream. I frequently hear some of my energy VC peers say that there's so little executive talent in this sector, replacement CEOs must be recruited as a matter of course; the facts don't support that view.
So – faced with the daunting task of predicting cleantech's NBA draft eight years hence – what am I looking for?
I'm looking for a great team – people who can defy intimidating odds and who show, rather than tell, how they will shape the world to match their will. I accept that additions will be made over time, but I have to believe that the people in front of me can drive a very large outcome in the roles they're in now. I don't care whether the market they're selling into is big today, but I need to be compelled by their vision of what will change to make it attractive during the period of investment. (That forcing function is probably regulatory.)
Finally, no matter how impressive the technology is, I won't compromise on the people (although I'm likely to accept a tradeoff in the opposite direction).
That's just my take, and I'm fully aware that the error bars around this analysis are huge. But if you agree with any of it, it follows that the best thing cleantech investors can do is attract the brightest minds to this domain. This should be the greatest creative and collaborative focus of our fledgling community.
Matthew Nordan (@matthewnordan) is an energy VC investor at Venrock. Earlier, he co-founded and led the energy tech analyst firm Lux Research and forecasted technology futures at Forrester. There's more where this came from at mnordan.com.
