Remove 2011 Remove Energy Remove Finance Remove Incubator
article thumbnail

Why Some of the Most Groundbreaking Technologies Are a Bad Fit for the Silicon Valley Funding Model

Harvard Business Review

“The venture capital model works well when the primary risk is finance risk — as the entrepreneurial team works to scale their business model — but it doesn’t work so well when technological risk and market risk coincide,” Errol Arkilic, an investor that specializes in hard tech ventures, told me.

article thumbnail

Creating a Future for (American) Cleantech

Harvard Business Review

By some estimates, China has supported its domestic solar industry with $34 billion in loans; that cash, an ability to rapidly ape western technologies , and the competitive advantages of low-cost labor and limited regulatory restraints allowed Chinese companies to sweep away Western competitor after Western competitor in 2011.

article thumbnail

VC Funding Can Be Bad For Your Start Up

Harvard Business Review

More than two generations ago, the venture capital community — VCs, business angels, incubators, and others — convinced the entrepreneurial world that writing business plans and raising venture capital constituted the twin centerpieces of entrepreneurial endeavor. But so is raising capital, which demands a lot of time and energy on its own.